The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About
the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas
for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.

All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.

PART I

CHAPTER I

BEGGAR’S CHOICE

Page 2

A great roar of British voices pierced the jewelled
curtain of the Indian night. A toast with musical
honours was being drunk in the sweltering dining-room
of the officers’ mess. The enthusiastic
hubbub spread far, for every door and window was flung
wide. Though the season was yet in its infancy,
the heat was intense. Markestan had the reputation
in the Indian Army for being one of the hottest corners
in the Empire in more senses than one, and Kurrumpore,
the military centre, had not been chosen for any especial
advantages of climate. So few indeed did it possess
in the eyes of Europeans that none ever went there
save those whom an inexorable fate compelled.
The rickety, wooden bungalows scattered about the
cantonment were temporary lodgings, not abiding-places.
The women of the community, like migratory birds, dwelt
in them for barely four months in the year, flitting
with the coming of the pitiless heat to Bhulwana,
their little paradise in the Hills. But that
was a twenty-four hours’ journey away, and the
men had to be content with an occasional week’s
leave from the depths of their inferno, unless, as
Tommy Denvers put it, they were lucky enough to go
sick, in which case their sojourn in paradise was prolonged,
much to the delight of the angels.

But on that hot night the annual flitting of the angels
had not yet come to pass, and notwithstanding the
heat the last dance of the season was to take place
at the Club House. The occasion was an exceptional
one, as the jovial sounds that issued from the officers’
mess-house testified. Round after round of cheers
followed the noisy toast, filling the night with the
merry uproar that echoed far and wide. A confusion
of voices succeeded these; and then by degrees the
babel died down, and a single voice made itself heard.
It spoke with easy fluency to the evident appreciation
of its listeners, and when it ceased there came another
hearty cheer. Then with jokes and careless laughter
the little company of British officers began to disperse.
They came forth in lounging groups on to the steps
of the mess-house, the foremost of them—­Tommy
Denvers—­holding the arm of his captain,
who suffered the familiarity as he suffered most things,
with the utmost indifference. None but Tommy
ever attempted to get on familiar terms with Everard
Monck. He was essentially a man who stood alone.
But the slim, fair-haired young subaltern worshipped
him openly and with reason. For Monck it was who,
grimly resolute, had pulled him through the worst illness
he had ever known, accomplishing by sheer force of
will what Ralston, the doctor, had failed to accomplish
by any other means. And in consequence and for
all time the youngest subaltern in the mess had become
Monck’s devoted adherent.

They stood together for a moment at the top of the
steps while Monck, his dark, lean face wholly unresponsive
and inscrutable, took out a cigar. The night
was a wonderland of deep spaces and glittering stars.
Somewhere far away a native tom-tom throbbed
like the beating of a fevered pulse, quickening spasmodically
at intervals and then dying away again into mere monotony.
The air was scentless, still, and heavy.

Page 3

“It’s going to be deuced warm,”
said Tommy.

“Have a smoke?” said Monck, proffering
his case.

The boy smiled with swift gratification. “Oh,
thanks awfully! But it’s a shame to hurry
over a good cigar, and I promised Stella to go straight
back.”

“A promise is a promise,” said Monck.
“Have it later!” He added rather curtly,
“I’m going your way myself.”

“Good!” said Tommy heartily. “But
aren’t you going to show at the Club House?
Aren’t you going to dance?”

Monck tossed down his lighted match and set his heel
on it. “I’m keeping my dancing for
to-morrow,” he said. “The best man
always has more than enough of that.”

Tommy made a gloomy sound that was like a groan and
began to descend the steps by his side. They
walked several paces along the dim road in silence;
then quite suddenly he burst into impulsive speech.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Monck!”

“I shouldn’t,” said Monck.

Tommy checked abruptly, looking at him oddly, uncertainly.
“How do you know what I was going to say?”
he demanded.

“I don’t,” said Monck.

“I believe you do,” said Tommy, unconvinced.

Monck blew forth a cloud of smoke and laughed in his
brief, rather grudging way. “You’re
getting quite clever for a child of your age,”
he observed. “But don’t overdo it,
my son! Don’t get precocious!”

Tommy’s hand grasped his arm confidentially.
“Monck, if I don’t speak out to someone,
I shall bust! Surely you don’t mind my speaking
out to you!”

“Not if there’s anything to be gained
by it,” said Monck.

He ignored the friendly, persuasive hand on his arm,
but yet in some fashion Tommy knew that it was not
unwelcome. He kept it there as he made reply.

“There isn’t. Only, you know, old
chap, it does a fellow good to unburden himself.
And I’m bothered to death about this business.”

“A bit late in the day, isn’t it?”
suggested Monck.

“Oh yes, I know; too late to do anything.
But,” Tommy spoke with force, “the nearer
it gets, the worse I feel. I’m downright
sick about it, and that’s the truth. How
would you feel, I wonder, if you knew your one and
only sister was going to marry a rotter? Would
you be satisfied to let things drift?”

Monck was silent for a space. They walked on
over the dusty road with the free swing of the conquering
race. One or two ’rickshaws met them as
they went, and a woman’s voice called a greeting;
but though they both responded, it scarcely served
as a diversion. The silence between them remained.

Monck spoke at last, briefly, with grim restraint.
“That’s rather a sweeping assertion of
yours. I shouldn’t repeat it if I were you.”

“It’s true all the same,” maintained
Tommy. “You know it’s true.”

“I know nothing,” said Monck. “I’ve
nothing whatever against Dacre.”

“You’ve nothing in favour of him anyway,”
growled Tommy.

Page 4

“Nothing particular; but I presume your sister
has.” There was just a hint of irony in
the quiet rejoinder.

Tommy winced. “Stella! Great Scott,
no! She doesn’t care the toss of a halfpenny
for him. I know that now. She only accepted
him because she found herself in such a beastly anomalous
position, with all the spiteful cats of the regiment
arrayed against her, treating her like a pariah.”

“Did she tell you so?” There was no irony
in Monck’s tone this time. It fell short
and stern.

Again Tommy glanced at him as one uncertain.
“Not likely,” he said.

“Then why do you make the assertion? What
grounds have you for making the assertion?”
Monck spoke with insistence as one who meant to have
an answer.

And the boy answered him, albeit shamefacedly.
“I really can’t say, Monck. I’m
the sort of fool that sees things without being able
to explain how. But that Stella has the faintest
spark of real love for that fellow Dacre,—­well,
I’d take my dying oath that she hasn’t.”

“Some women don’t go in for that sort
of thing,” commented Monck dryly.

Monck laughed a little. “Oh, you’re
deep enough, Tommy. But you’re transparent
as well. Now your sister on the other hand is
quite inscrutable. But it is not for us to interfere.
She probably knows what she is doing—­very
well indeed.”

“That’s just it. Does she know?
Isn’t she taking a most awful leap in the dark?”
Keen anxiety sounded in Tommy’s voice. “It’s
been such horribly quick work, you know. Why,
she hasn’t been out here six weeks. It’s
a shame for any girl to marry on such short notice
as that. I said so to her, and she—­she
laughed and said, ’Oh, that’s beggar’s
choice! Do you think I could enjoy life with
your angels in paradise in unmarried bliss? I’d
sooner stay down in hell with you.’ And
she’d have done it too, Monck. And it would
probably have killed her. That’s partly
how I came to know.”

“Haven’t the women been decent to her?”
Monck’s question fell curtly, as if the subject
were one which he was reluctant to discuss.

Tommy looked at him through the starlight. “You
know what they are,” he said bluntly. “They’d
hunt anybody if once Lady Harriet gave tongue.
She chose to eye Stella askance from the very outset,
and of course all the rest followed suit. Mrs.
Ralston is the only one in the whole crowd who has
ever treated her decently, but of course she’s
nobody. Everyone sits on her. As if,”
he spoke with heat, “Stella weren’t as
good as the best of ’em—­and better!
What right have they to treat her like a social outcast
just because she came out here to me on her own?
It’s hateful! It’s iniquitous!
What else could she have done?”

“It seems reasonable—­from a man’s
point of view,” said Monck.

“It was reasonable. It was the only thing
possible. And just for that they chose to turn
the cold shoulder on her,—­to ostracize her
practically. What had she done to them? What
right had they to treat her like that?” Fierce
resentment sounded in Tommy’s voice.

Page 5

“I’ll tell you if you want to know,”
said Monck abruptly. “It’s the law
of the pack to rend an outsider. And your sister
will always be that—­married or otherwise.
They may fawn upon her later, Dacre being one to hold
his own with women. But they will always hate
her in their hearts. You see, she is beautiful.”

“Is she?” said Tommy in surprise.
“Do you know, I never thought of that!”

Monck laughed—­a cold, sardonic laugh.
“Quite so! You wouldn’t! But
Dacre has—­and a few more of us.”

“Oh, confound Dacre!” Tommy’s irritation
returned with a rush. “I detest the man!
He behaves as if he were conferring a favour.
When he was making that speech to-night, I wanted
to fling my glass at him.”

“Ah, but you mustn’t do those things.”
Monck spoke reprovingly. “You may be young,
but you’re past the schoolboy stage. Dacre
is more of a woman’s favourite than a man’s,
you must remember. If your sister is not in love
with him, she is about the only woman in the station
who isn’t.”

“That’s the disgusting part of it,”
fumed Tommy. “He makes love to every woman
he meets.”

They had reached a shadowy compound that bordered
the dusty road for a few yards. A little eddying
wind made a mysterious whisper among its thirsty shrubs.
The bungalow it surrounded showed dimly in the starlight,
a wooden structure with a raised verandah and a flight
of steps leading up to it. A light thrown by
a red-shaded lamp shone out from one of the rooms,
casting a shaft of ruddy brilliance into the night
as though it defied the splendour without. It
shone upon Tommy’s face as he paused, showing
it troubled and anxious.

“You may as well come in,” he said.
“She is sure to be ready. Come in and have
a drink!”

Monck stood still. His dark face was in shadow.
He seemed to be debating some point with himself.

Finally, “All right. Just for a minute,”
he said. “But, look here, Tommy! Don’t
you let your sister suspect that you’ve been
making a confidant of me! I don’t fancy
it would please her. Put on a grin, man!
Don’t look bowed down with family cares!
She is probably quite capable of looking after herself—­like
the rest of ’em.”

He clapped a careless hand on the lad’s shoulder
as they turned up the path together towards the streaming
red light.

“You’re a bit of a woman-hater, aren’t
you?” said Tommy.

And Monck laughed again his short, rather bitter laugh;
but he said no word in answer.

CHAPTER II

THE PRISONER AT THE BAR

In the room with the crimson-shaded lamp Stella Denvers
sat waiting. The red glow compassed her warmly,
striking wonderful copper gleams in the burnished
coils of her hair. Her face was bent over the
long white gloves that she was pulling over her wrists,
a pale face that yet was extraordinarily vivid, with
features that were delicate and proud, and lips that
had the exquisite softness and purity of a flower.

Page 6

She raised her eyes from her task at sound of the
steps below the window, and their starry brightness
under her straight black brows gave her an infinite
allurement. Certainly a beautiful woman, as Monck
had said, and possessing the brilliance and the wonder
of youth to an almost dazzling degree! Perhaps
it was not altogether surprising that the ladies of
the regiment had not been too enthusiastic in their
welcome of this sister of Tommy’s who had come
so suddenly into their midst, defying convention.
Her advent had been utterly unexpected—­a
total surprise even to Tommy, who, returning one day
from the polo-ground, had found her awaiting him in
the bachelor quarters which he had shared with three
other subalterns. And her arrival had set the
whole station buzzing.

Led by the Colonel’s wife, Lady Harriet Mansfield,
the women of the regiment had—­with the
single exception of Mrs. Ralston whose opinion was
of no account—­risen and condemned the splendid
stranger who had come amongst them with such supreme
audacity and eclipsed the fairest of them. Stella’s
own simple explanation that she had, upon attaining
her majority and fifty pounds a year, decided to quit
the home of some distant relatives who did not want
her and join Tommy who was the only near relation
she had, had satisfied no one. She was an interloper,
and as such they united to treat her. As Lady
Harriet said, no nice girl would have dreamed of taking
such an extraordinary step, and she had not the smallest
intention of offering her the chaperonage that she
so conspicuously lacked. If Mrs. Ralston chose
to do so, that was her own affair. Such action
on the part of the surgeon’s very ordinary wife
would make no difference to any one. She was glad
to think that all the other ladies were too well-bred
to accept without reservation so unconventional a
type.

The fact that she was Tommy’s sister was the
only consideration in her favour. Tommy was quite
a nice boy, and they could not for his sake entirely
exclude her from the regimental society, but to no
intimate gathering was she ever invited, nor from
the female portion of the community was there any
welcome for her at the Club.

The attitude of the officers of the regiment was of
a totally different nature. They had accepted
her with enthusiasm, possibly all the more marked
on account of the aloofness of their women folk, and
in a very short time they were paying her homage as
one man. The subalterns who had shared their
quarters with Tommy turned out to make room for her,
treating her like a queen suddenly come into her own,
and like a queen she entered into possession, accepting
all courtesy just as she ignored all slights with
a delicate self-possession that yet knew how to be
gracious when occasion demanded.

Mrs. Ralston would have offered her harbourage had
she desired it, but there was pride in Stella—­a
pride that surged and rebelled very far below her
serenity. She received favours from none.

Page 7

And so, unshackled and unchaperoned, she had gone
her way among her critics, and no one—­not
even Tommy—­suspected how deep was the wound
that their barely-veiled hostility had inflicted.
In bitterness of soul she hid it from all the world,
and only her brother and her brother’s grim
and somewhat unapproachable captain were even vaguely
aware of its existence.

Everard Monck was one of the very few men who had
not laid themselves down before her dainty feet, and
she had gradually come to believe that this man shared
the silent, side-long disapproval manifested by the
women. Very strangely that belief hurt her even
more deeply, in a subtle, incomprehensible fashion,
than any slights inflicted by her own sex. Possibly
Tommy’s warm enthusiasm for the man had made
her more sensitive regarding his good opinion.
And possibly she was over ready to read condemnation
in his grave eyes. But—­whatever the
reason—­she would have given much to have
had him on her side. Somehow it mattered to her,
and mattered vitally.

But Monck had never joined her retinue of courtiers.
He was never other than courteous to her, but he did
not seek her out. Perhaps he had better things
to do. Aloof, impenetrable, cold, he passed her
by, and she would have been even more amazed than
Tommy had she heard him describe her as beautiful,
so convinced was she that he saw in her no charm.

It had been a disheartening struggle, this hewing
for herself a way along the rocky paths of prejudice,
and many had been the thorns under her feet.
Though she kept a brave heart and never faltered, she
had tired inevitably of the perpetual effort it entailed.
Three weeks after her arrival, when the annual exodus
of the ladies of the regiment to the Hills was drawing
near, she became engaged to Ralph Dacre, the handsomest
and most irresponsible man in the mess.

With him at least her power to attract was paramount.
He was blindly, almost fulsomely, in love. Her
beauty went to his head from the outset; it fired
his blood. He worshipped her hotly, and pursued
her untiringly, caring little whether she returned
his devotion so long as he ultimately took possession.
And when finally, half-disdainfully, she yielded to
his insistence, his one all-mastering thought became
to clinch the bargain before she could repent of it.
It was a mad and headlong passion that drove him—­not
for the first time in his life; and the subtle pride
of her and the soft reserve made her all the more
desirable in his eyes.

He had won her; he did not stop to ask himself how.
The women said that the luck was all on her side.
The men forebore to express an opinion. Dacre
had attained his captaincy, but he was not regarded
with great respect by any one. His fellow-officers
shrugged their shoulders over him, and the commanding
officer, Colonel Mansfield, had been heard to call
him “the craziest madman it had ever been his
fate to meet.” No one, except Tommy, actively
disliked him, and he had no grounds for so doing,
as Monck had pointed out. Monck, who till then
had occupied the same bungalow, declared he had nothing
against him, and he was surely in a position to form
a very shrewd opinion. For Monck was neither fool
nor madman, and there was very little that escaped
his silent observation.

Page 8

He was acting as best man at the morrow’s ceremony,
the function having been almost thrust upon him by
Dacre who, oddly enough, shared something of Tommy’s
veneration for his very reticent brother-officer.
There was scant friendship between them. Each
had been accustomed to go his own way wholly independent
of the other. They were no more than casual acquaintances,
and they were content to remain such. But undoubtedly
Dacre entertained a certain respect for Monck and observed
a wariness of behaviour in his presence that he never
troubled to assume for any other man. He was
careful in his dealings with him, being at all times
not wholly certain of his ground.

Other men felt the same uncertainty in connection
with Monck. None—­save Tommy—­was
sure what manner of man he was. Tommy alone took
him for granted with whole-hearted admiration, and
at his earnest wish it had been arranged between them
that Monck should take up his abode with him when
the forthcoming marriage had deprived each of a companion.
Tommy was delighted with the idea, and he had a gratifying
suspicion that Monck himself was inclined to be pleased
with it also.

The Green Bungalow had become considerably more homelike
since Stella’s arrival, and Tommy meant to keep
it so. He was sure that Monck and he would have
the same tastes.

And so on that eve of his sister’s wedding,
the thought of their coming companionship was the
sole redeeming feature of the whole affair, and he
turned in his impulsive fashion to say so just as they
reached the verandah steps.

But the words did not leave his lips, for the red
glow flung from the lamp had found Monck’s upturned
face, and something—­something about it—­checked
all speech for the moment. He was looking straight
up at the lighted window and the face of a beautiful
woman who gazed forth into the night. And his
eyes were no longer cold and unresponsive, but burning,
ardent, intensely alive. Tommy forgot what he
was going to say and only stared.

The moment passed; it was scarcely so much as a moment.
And Monck moved on in his calm, unfaltering way.

“Your sister is ready and waiting,” he
said.

They ascended the steps together, and the girl who
sat by the open window rose with a stately movement
and stepped forward to meet them.

“Hullo, Stella!” was Tommy’s greeting.
“Hope I’m not awfully late. They
wasted such a confounded time over toasts at mess to-night.
Yours was one of ’em, and I had to reply.
I hadn’t a notion what to say. Captain
Monck thinks I made an awful hash of it though he is
too considerate to say so.”

“On the contrary I said ‘Hear, hear!’
to every stutter,” said Monck, bowing slightly
as he took the hand she offered.

She was wearing a black lace dress with a glittering
spangled scarf of Indian gauze floating about her.
Her neck and shoulders gleamed in the soft red glow.
She was superb that night.

Page 9

She smiled at Monck, and her smile was as a shining
cloak hiding her soul. “So you have started
upon your official duties already!” she said.
“It is the best man’s business to encourage
and console everyone concerned, isn’t it?”

The faint cynicism of her speech was like her smile.
It held back all intrusive curiosity. And the
man’s answering smile had something of the same
quality. Reserve met reserve.

“I hope I shall not find it very arduous in
that respect,” he said. “I did not
come here in that capacity.”

“I am glad of that,” she said. “Won’t
you come in and sit down?”

She motioned him within with a queenly gesture, but
her invitation was wholly lacking in warmth.
It was Tommy who pressed forward with eager hospitality.

“Yes, and have a drink! It’s a thirsty
right. It’s getting infernally hot.
Stella, you’re lucky to be going out of it.”

“Oh, I am very lucky,” Stella said.

They entered the lighted room, and Tommy went in search
of refreshment.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Stella.

Her voice was deep and pure, and the music in it made
him wonder if she sang. He sat facing her while
she returned with apparent absorption to the fastening
of her gloves. She spoke again after a moment
without raising her eyes. “Are you proposing
to take up your abode here to-morrow?”

“That’s the idea,” said Monck.

“I hope you and Tommy will be quite comfortable,”
she said. “No doubt he will be a good deal
happier with you than he has been for the past few
weeks with me.”

“I don’t know why he should be,”
said Monck.

“No?” She was frowning slightly over her
glove. “You see, my sojourn here has not
been—­a great success. I think poor
Tommy has felt it rather badly. He likes a genial
atmosphere.”

“He won’t get much of that in my company,”
observed Monck.

She smiled momentarily. “Perhaps not.
But I think he will not be sorry to be relieved of
family cares. They have weighed rather heavily
upon him.”

“He will be sorry to lose you,” said Monck.

“Oh, of course, in a way. But he will soon
get over that.” She looked up at him suddenly.
“You will all be rather thankful when I am safely
married, Captain Monck,” she said.

There was a second or two of silence. Monck’s
eyes looked straight back into hers while it lasted,
but they held no warmth, scarcely even interest.

“I really don’t know why you should say
that, Miss Denvers,” he said stiffly at length.

Stella’s gloved hands clasped each other.
She was breathing somewhat hard, yet her bearing was
wholly regal, even disdainful.

“Only because I realize that I have been a great
anxiety to all the respectable portion of the community,”
she made careless reply. “I think I am
right in classing you under that heading, am I not?”

He heard the challenge in her tone, delicately though
she presented it, and something in him that was fierce
and unrestrained sprang up to meet it. But he
forced it back. His expression remained wholly
inscrutable.

Page 10

“I don’t think I can claim to be anything
else,” he said. “But that fact scarcely
makes me in any sense one of a community. I think
I prefer to stand alone.”

Her blue eyes sparkled a little. “Strangely,
I have the same preference,” she said.
“It has never appealed to me to be one of a
crowd. I like independence—­whatever
the crowd may say. But I am quite aware that
in a woman that is considered a dangerous taste.
A woman should always conform to rule.”

“I have never studied the subject,” said
Monck.

He spoke briefly. Tommy’s confidences had
stirred within him that which could not be expressed.
The whole soul of him shrank with an almost angry
repugnance from discussing the matter with her.
No discussion could make any difference at this stage.

Again for a second he saw her slight frown. Then
she leaned back in her chair, stretching up her arms
as if weary of the matter. “In fact you
avoid all things feminine,” she said. “How
discreet of you!”

A large white moth floated suddenly in and began to
beat itself against the lamp-shade. Monck’s
eyes watched it with a grim concentration. Stella’s
were half-closed. She seemed to have dismissed
him from her mind as an unimportant detail. The
silence widened between them.

Suddenly there was a movement. The fluttering
creature had found the flame and fallen dazed upon
the table. Almost in the same second Monck stooped
forward swiftly and silently, and crushed the thing
with his closed fist.

Stella drew a quick breath. Her eyes were wide
open again. She sat up.

“Why did you do that?”

He looked at her again, a smouldering gleam in his
eyes. “It was on its way to destruction,”
he said.

“And so you helped it!”

He nodded. “Yes. Long-drawn-out agonies
don’t attract me.”

Stella laughed softly, yet with a touch of mockery.
“Oh, it was an act of mercy, was it? You
didn’t look particularly merciful. In fact,
that is about the last quality I should have attributed
to you.”

“I don’t think,” Monck said very
quietly, “that you are in a position to judge
me.” She leaned forward. He saw that
her bosom was heaving. “That is your prerogative,
isn’t it?” she said. “I—­I
am just the prisoner at the bar, and—­like
the moth—­I have been condemned—­without
mercy.”

He raised his brows sharply. For a second he
had the look of a man who has been stabbed in the
back. Then with a swift effort he pulled himself
together.

In the same moment Stella rose. She was smiling,
and there was a red flush in her cheeks. She
took her fan from the table.

“And now,” she said, “I am going
to dance—­all night long. Every officer
in the mess—­save one—­has asked
me for a dance.”

He was on his feet in an instant. He had checked
one impulse, but even to his endurance there were
limits. He spoke as one goaded.

Page 11

“Will you give me one?”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “No,
Captain Monck.”

His dark face looked suddenly stubborn. “I
don’t often dance,” he said. “I
wasn’t going to dance to-night. But—­I
will have one—­I must have one—­with
you.”

“Why?” Her question fell with a crystal
clearness. There was something of crystal hardness
in her eyes.

But the man was undaunted. “Because you
have wronged me, and you owe me reparation.”

“I—­have wronged—­you!”
She spoke the words slowly, still looking him in the
eyes.

He made an abrupt gesture as of holding back some
inner force that strongly urged him. “I
am not one of your persecutors,” he said.
“I have never in my life presumed to judge you—­far
less condemn you.”

His voice vibrated as though some emotion fought fiercely
for the mastery. They stood facing each other
in what might have been open antagonism but for that
deep quiver in the man’s voice.

There was a tremor in her voice also, but her eyes
were shining with the light half-eager, half-anxious,
of one who seeks for buried treasure.

Monck’s answer was pitched very low. It
was as if the soul of him gave utterance to the words.
“It is my nature to stand aloof. I was waiting.”

“Waiting?” Her two hands gripped suddenly
hard upon her fan, but still her shining eyes did
not flinch from his. Still with a quivering heart
she searched.

Almost in a whisper came his reply. “I
was waiting—­till my turn should come.”

“Ah!” The fan snapped between her hands;
she cast it from her with a movement that was almost
violent.

Monck drew back sharply. With a smile that was
grimly cynical he veiled his soul. “I was
a fool, of course, and I am quite aware that my foolishness
is nothing to you. But at least you know now how
little cause you have to hate me.”

She had turned from him and gone to the open window.
She stood there bending slightly forward, as one who
strains for a last glimpse of something that has passed
from sight.

Monck remained motionless, watching her. From
another room near by there came the sound of Tommy’s
humming and the cheery pop of a withdrawn cork.

Stella spoke at last, in a whisper, and as she spoke
the strain went out of her attitude and she drooped
against the wood-work of the window as if spent.
“Yes; but I know—­too late.”

The words reached him though he scarcely felt that
they were intended to do so. He suffered them
to go into silence; the time for speech was past.

The seconds throbbed away between them. Stella
did not move or speak again, and at last Monck turned
from her. He picked up the broken fan, and with
a curious reverence he laid it out of sight among some
books on the table.

Page 12

Then he stood immovable as granite and waited.

There came the sound of Tommy’s footsteps, and
in a moment the door was flung open. Tommy advanced
with all a host’s solicitude.

“Oh, I say, I’m awfully sorry to have
kept you waiting so long. That silly ass of a
khit had cleared off and left us nothing to
drink. Stella, we shall miss all the fun if we
don’t hurry up. Come on, Monck, old chap,
say when!”

He stopped at the table, and Stella turned from the
window and moved forward. Her face was pale,
but she was smiling.

Monck was smiling also, faintly, grimly. “Don’t
mix any strong waters for me, Tommy!” he said.
“And you had better not be too generous to yourself!
Remember, you will have to dance with Lady Harriet!”

Tommy grimaced above the glasses. “All
right. Have some lime-juice! You will have
to dance with her too. That’s some consolation!”

“I?” said Monck. He took the glass
and handed it to Stella, then as she shook her head
he put it to his own lips and drank as a man drinks
to a memory. “No,” he said then.
“I am dancing only one dance to-night, and that
will not be with Lady Harriet Mansfield.”

“Who then?” questioned Tommy.

It was Stella who answered him, in her voice a note
that sounded half-reckless, half-defiant. “It
isn’t given to every woman to dance at her own
funeral,” she said: “Captain Monck
has kindly consented to assist at the orgy of mine.”

Stella laughed a little, softly, as though at the
vagaries of a child. “Poor Tommy!”
she said. “What it is to be so young!”

“I’d sooner be a babe in arms than a cynic,”
said Tommy bluntly.

CHAPTER III

THE TRIUMPH

Lady Harriet’s lorgnettes were brought piercingly
to bear upon the bride-elect that night, and her thin,
refined features never relaxed during the operation.
She was looking upon such youth and loveliness as
seldom came her way; but the sight gave her no pleasure.
She deemed it extremely unsuitable that Stella should
dance at all on the eve of her wedding, and when she
realized that nearly every man in the room was having
his turn, her disapproval by no means diminished.
She wondered audibly to one after another of her followers
what Captain Dacre was about to permit such a thing.
And when Monck—­Everard Monck of all people
who usually avoided all gatherings at the Club and
had never been known to dance if he could find any
legitimate means of excusing himself—­waltzed
Stella through the throng, her indignation amounted
almost to anger. The mess had yielded to the last
man.

“I call it almost brazen,” she said to
Mrs. Burton, the Major’s wife. “She
flaunts her unconventionality in our faces.”

Page 13

“A grave mistake,” agreed Mrs. Burton.
“It will not make us think any the more highly
of her when she is married.”

“I am in two minds about calling on her,”
declared Lady Harriet. “I am very doubtful
as to the advisability of inviting any one so obviously
unsuitable into our inner circle. Of course Mrs.
Ralston,” she raised her long pointed chin upon
the name, “will please herself in the matter.
She will probably be the first to try and draw her
in, but what Mrs. Ralston does and what I do are two
very different things. She is not particular
as to the society she keeps, and the result is that
her opinion is very justly regarded as worthless.”

“Oh, quite,” agreed Mrs. Burton, sending
an obviously false smile in the direction of the lady
last named who was approaching them in the company
of Mrs. Ermsted, the Adjutant’s wife, a little
smart woman whom Tommy had long since surnamed “The
Lizard.”

Mrs. Ralston, the surgeon’s wife, had once been
a pretty girl, and there were occasions still on which
her prettiness lingered like the gleams of a fading
sunset. She had a diffident manner in society,
but yet she was the only woman in the station who
refused to follow Lady Harriet’s lead.
As Tommy had said, she was a nobody. Her influence
was of no account, but yet with unobtrusive insistence
she took her own way, and none could turn her therefrom.

Mrs. Ermsted held her up to ridicule openly, and yet
very strangely she did not seem to dislike the Adjutant’s
sharp-tongued little wife. She had been very
good to her on more than one occasion, and the most
appreciative remark that Mrs. Ermsted had ever found
to make regarding her was that the poor thing was
so fond of drudging for somebody that it was a real
kindness to let her. Mrs. Ermsted was quite willing
to be kind to any one in that respect.

They approached now, and Lady Harriet gave to each
her distinctive smile of royal condescension.

“I expected to see you dancing, Mrs. Ermsted,”
she said.

“Oh, it’s too hot,” declared Mrs.
Ermsted. “You want the temperament of a
salamander to dance on a night like this.”

She cast a barbed glance towards Stella as she spoke
as Monck guided her to the least crowded corner of
the ball-room. Stella’s delicate face was
flushed, but it was the exquisite flush of a blush-rose.
Her eyes were of a starry brightness; she had the
radiant look of one who has achieved her heart’s
desire.

“What a vision of triumph!” commented
Mrs. Ermsted. “It’s soothing anyway
to know that that wild-rose complexion won’t
survive the summer. Captain Monck looks curiously
out of his element. No doubt he prefers the bazaars.”

“But Stella Denvers is enchanting to-night,”
murmured Mrs. Ralston.

Lady Harriet overheard the murmur, and her aquiline
nose was instantly elevated a little higher.
“So many people never see beyond the outer husk,”
she said.

Page 14

Mrs. Burton smiled out of her slitty eyes. “I
should scarcely imagine Captain Monck to be one of
them,” she said. “He is obviously
here as a matter of form to-night. The best man
must be civil to the bride—­whatever his
feelings.”

Lady Harriet’s face cleared a little, although
her estimate of Mrs. Burton’s opinion was not
a very high one. “That may account for Captain
Dacre’s extremely complacent attitude,”
she said. “He regards the attentions paid
to his fiancee as a tribute to himself.”

“He may change his point of view when he is
married,” laughed Mrs. Ermsted. “It
will be interesting to watch developments. We
all know what Captain Dacre is. I have never
yet seen him satisfied to take a back seat.”

Mrs. Burton laughed with her. “Nor content
to occupy even a front one at the same show for long,”
she observed. “I marvel to see him caught
in the noose so easily.”

“None but an adventuress could have done it,”
declared Mrs. Ermsted. “She has practised
the art of slinging the lasso before now.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Ralston, “forgive
me, but that is unworthy of you.”

Mrs. Ermsted flicked an eyelid in Mrs. Burton’s
direction with an insouciance that somehow
robbed the act of any serious sting. “Poor
Mrs. Ralston holds such a high opinion of everybody,”
she said, “that she must meet with a hundred
disappointments in a day.”

Lady Harriet’s down-turned lips said nothing,
but they were none the less eloquent on that account.

Mrs. Ralston’s eyes of faded blue watched Stella
with a distressed look. She was not hurt on her
own account, but she hated to hear the girl criticized
in so unfriendly a spirit. Stella was more brilliantly
beautiful that night than she had ever before seen
her, and she longed to hear a word of appreciation
from that hostile group of women. But she knew
very well that the longing was vain, and it was with
relief that she saw Captain Dacre himself saunter
up to claim Mrs. Ermsted for a partner.

Smiling, debonair, complacent, the morrow’s
bridegroom had a careless quip for all and sundry
on that last night. It was evident that his fiancee’s
defection was a matter of no moment to him. Stella
was to have her fling, and he, it seemed, meant to
have his. He and Mrs. Ermsted had had many a
flirtation in the days that were past and it was well
known that Captain Ermsted heartily detested him in
consequence. Some even hinted that matters had
at one time approached very near to a climax, but
Ralph Dacre knew how to handle difficult situations,
and with considerable tact had managed to avoid it.
Little Mrs. Ermsted, though still willing to flirt,
treated him with just a tinge of disdain, now-a-days;
no one knew wherefore. Perhaps it was more for
Stella’s edification than her own that she condescended
to dance with him on that sweltering evening of Indian
spring.

Page 15

But Stella was evidently too engrossed with her own
affairs to pay much attention to the doings of her
fiance. His love-making was not of a nature
to be carried on in public. That would come later
when they walked home through the glittering night
and parted in the shadowy verandah while Tommy tramped
restlessly about within the bungalow. He would
claim that as a right she knew, and once or twice remembering
the methods of his courtship a little shudder went
through her as she danced. Very willingly would
she have left early and foregone all intercourse with
her lover that night. But there was no escape
for her. She was pledged to the last dance, and
for the sake of the pride that she carried so high
she would not shrink under the malicious eyes that
watched her so unsparingly. Her dance with Monck
was quickly over, and he left her with the briefest
word of thanks. Afterwards she saw him no more.

The rest of the evening passed in a whirl of gaiety
that meant very little to her. Perhaps, on the
whole, it was easier to bear than an evening spent
in solitude would have been. She knew that she
would be too utterly weary to lie awake when bedtime
came at last. And the night would be so short—­ah,
so short! And so she danced and laughed with the
gayest of the merrymakers, and when it was over at
last even the severest of her critics had to admit
that her triumph was complete. She had borne
herself like a queen at a banquet of rejoicing, and
like a queen she finally quitted the festive scene
in a ’rickshaw drawn by a team of giddy subalterns,
scattering her careless favours upon all who cared
to compete for them.

As she had foreseen, Dacre accompanied the procession.
He had no mind to be cheated of his rights, and it
was he who finally dispersed the irresponsible throng
at the steps of the verandah, handing her up them
with a royal air and drawing her away from the laughter
and cheering that followed her.

With her hand pressed lightly against his side, he
led her away to the darkest corner, and there he pushed
back the soft wrap from her shoulders and gathered
her into his arms.

She stood almost stiffly in his embrace, neither yielding
nor attempting to avoid. But at the touch of
his lips upon her neck she shivered. There was
something sensual in that touch that revolted her—­in
spite of herself.

“Ralph,” she said, and her voice quivered
a little, “I think you must say good-bye to
me. I am tired to-night. If I don’t
rest, I shall never be ready for to-morrow.”

He made an inarticulate sound that in some fashion
expressed what the drawing of his lips had made her
feel. “Sweetheart—­to-morrow!”
he said, and kissed her again with a lingering persistence
that to her overwrought nerves had in it something
that was almost unendurable. It made her think
of an epicurean tasting some favourite dish and smacking
his lips over it.

A hint of irritation sounded in her voice as she said,
drawing slightly away from him, “Yes, I want
to rest for the few hours that are left. Please
say good night now, Ralph! Really I am tired.”

Page 16

He laughed softly, his cheek laid to hers. “Ah,
Stella!” he said. “What a queen you
have been to-night! I have been watching you with
the rest of the world, and I shouldn’t mind
laying pretty heavy odds that there isn’t a
single man among ’em that doesn’t envy
me.”

Stella drew a deep breath as if she laboured against
some oppression. “It’s nice to be
envied, isn’t it?” she said.

He kissed her again. “Ah! You’re
a prize!” he said. “It was just a
question of first in, and I never was one to let the
grass grow. I plucked the fruit while all the
rest were just looking at it. Stella—­mine!
Stella—­mine!”

His lips pressed hers between the words closely, possessively,
and again involuntarily she shivered. She could
not return his caresses that night.

His hold relaxed at last. “How cold you
are, my Star of the North!” he said. “What
is it? Surely you are not nervous at the thought
of to-morrow after your triumph to-night! You
will carry all before you, never fear!”

She answered him in a voice so flat and emotionless
that it sounded foreign even to herself. “Oh,
no, I am not nervous. I’m too tired to
feel anything to-night.”

He took her face between his hands. “Ah,
well, you will be all mine this time to-morrow.
One kiss and I will let you go. You witch—­you
enchantress! I never thought you would draw old
Monck too into your toils.”

Again she drew that deep breath as of one borne down
by some heavy weight. “Nor I,” she
said, and gave him wearily the kiss for which he bargained.

He did not stay much longer, possibly realizing his
inability to awake any genuine response in her that
night. Her remoteness must have chilled any man
less ardent. But he went from her too encompassed
with blissful anticipation to attach any importance
to the obvious lack of corresponding delight on her
part. She was already in his estimation his own
property, and the thought of her happiness was one
which scarcely entered into his consideration.
She had accepted him, and no doubt she realized that
she was doing very well for herself. He had no
misgivings on that point. Stella was a young
woman who knew her own mind very thoroughly.
She had secured the finest catch within reach, and
she was not likely to repent of her bargain at this
stage.

So, unconcernedly, he went his way, throwing a couple
of annas with careless generosity to a beggar
who followed him along the road whining for alms,
well-satisfied with himself and with all the world
on that wonderful night that had witnessed the final
triumph of the woman whom he had chosen for his bride,
asking nought of the gods save that which they had
deigned to bestow—­Fortune’s favourite
whom every man must envy.

CHAPTER IV

THE BRIDE

It was remarked by Tommy’s brother-officers
on the following day that it was he rather than the
bride who displayed all the shyness that befitted
the occasion.

Page 17

As he walked up the aisle with his sister’s
hand on his arm, his face was crimson and reluctant,
and he stared straight before him as if unwilling
to meet all the watching eyes that followed their progress.
But the bride walked proudly and firmly, her head held
high with even the suspicion of an upward, disdainful
curve to her beautiful mouth, the ghost of a defiant
smile. To all who saw her she was a splendid
spectacle of bridal content.

“Unparalleled effrontery!” whispered Lady
Harriet, surveying the proud young face through her
lorgnettes.

“Ah, but she is exquisite,” murmured Mrs.
Ralston with a wistful mist in her faded eyes.

Yes, she was splendid. Even the most hostile
had to admit it. On that, the day of her final
victory, she surpassed herself. She shone as a
queen with majestic self-assurance, wholly at her ease,
sublimely indifferent to all criticism.

At the chancel-steps she bestowed a brief smile of
greeting upon her waiting bridegroom, and for a single
moment her steady eyes rested, though without any
gleam of recognition, upon the dark face of the best
man.

Then the service began, and with the utmost calmness
of demeanour she took her part.

When the service was over, Tommy extended his hesitating
invitation to Lady Harriet and his commanding officer
to follow the newly wedded pair to the vestry.
They went. Colonel Mansfield with a species of
jocose pomposity specially assumed for the occasion,
his wife, upright, thin-lipped, forbidding, instinct
with wordless disapproval.

The bride,—­the veil thrown back from her
beautiful face,—­stood laughing with her
husband. There was no fixity in the soft flush
of those delicately rounded cheeks. Even Lady
Harriet realized that, though she had never seen so
much colour in the girl’s face before. She
advanced stiffly, and Ralph Dacre with smiling grace
took his wife’s arm and drew her forward.

“This is good of you, Lady Harriet,” he
declared. “I was hoping for your support.
Allow me to introduce—­my wife!”

His words had a pride of possession that rang clarion-like
in every syllable, and in response Lady Harriet was
moved to offer a cold cheek in salutation to the bride.
Stella bent instantly and kissed it with a quick graciousness
that would have melted any one less austere, but in
Lady Harriet’s opinion the act was marred by
its very impulsiveness. She did not like impulsive
people. So, with chill repression, she accepted
the only overture from Stella that she was ever to
receive.

But if she were proof against the girl’s ready
charm, with her husband it was quite otherwise.
Stella broke through his pomposity without effort,
giving him both her hands with a simplicity that went
straight to his heart. He held them in a tight,
paternal grasp.

Page 18

“God bless you, my dear!” he said.
“I wish you both every happiness from the bottom
of my soul.”

She turned from him a few seconds later with a faintly
tremulous laugh to give her hand to the best man,
but it did not linger in his, and to his curtly proffered
felicitations she made no verbal response whatever.

Ten minutes later, as she left the vestry with her
husband, Mrs. Ralston pressed forward unexpectedly,
and openly checked her progress in full view of the
whole assembly.

“My dear,” she murmured humbly, “my
dear, you’ll allow me I know. I wanted
just to tell you how beautiful you look, and how earnestly
I pray for your happiness.”

It was a daring move, and it had not been accomplished
without courage. Lady Harriet in the background
stiffened with displeasure, nearer to actual anger
than she had ever before permitted herself to be with
any one so contemptible as the surgeon’s wife.
Even Major Ralston himself, most phlegmatic of men,
looked momentarily disconcerted by his wife’s
action.

But Stella—­Stella stopped dead with a new
light in her eyes, and in a moment dropped her husband’s
arm to fling both her own about the gentle, faded
woman who had dared thus openly to range herself on
her side.

“Dear Mrs. Ralston,” she said, not very
steadily, “how more than kind of you to tell
me that!”

The tears were actually in her eyes as she kissed
the surgeon’s wife. That spontaneous act
of sympathy had pierced straight through her armour
of reserve and found its way to her heart. Her
face, as she passed on down the aisle by her husband’s
side, was wonderfully softened, and even Mrs. Ermsted
found no gibe to fling after her. The smile that
quivered on Stella’s lips was full of an unconscious
pathos that disarmed all criticism.

The sunshine outside the church was blinding.
It smote through the awning with pitiless intensity.
Around the carriage a curious crowd had gathered to
see the bridal procession. To Stella’s dazzled
eyes it seemed a surging sea of unfamiliar faces.
But one face stood out from the rest—­the
calm countenance of Ralph Dacre’s magnificent
Sikh servant clad in snowy linen, who stood at the
carriage door and gravely bowed himself before her,
stretching an arm to protect her dress from the wheel.

“This is Peter the Great,” said Dacre’s
careless voice, “a highly honourable person,
Stella, and a most efficient bodyguard.”

“How do you do?” said Stella, and held
out her hand.

She acted with the utmost simplicity. During
her four weeks’ sojourn in India she had not
learned to treat the native servant with contempt,
and the majestic presence of this man made her feel
almost as if she were dealing with a prince.

He straightened himself swiftly at her action, and
she saw a sudden, gleaming smile flash across his
grave face. Then he took the proffered hand,
bending low over it till his turbaned forehead for
a moment touched her fingers.

Page 19

“May the sun always shine on you, my mem-sahib!”
he said.

Stella realized afterwards that in action and in words
there lay a tacit acceptance of her as mistress which
was to become the allegiance of a lifelong service.

She stepped into the carriage with a feeling of warmth
at her heart which was very different from the icy
constriction that had bound it when she had arrived
at the church a brief half-hour before with Tommy.

Her husband’s arm was about her as they drove
away. He pressed her to his side. “Oh,
Star of my heart, how superb you are!” he said.
“I feel as if I had married a queen. And
you weren’t even nervous.”

She bent her head, not looking at him. “Poor
Tommy was,” she said.

He smiled tolerantly. “Tommy’s such
a youngster.”

She smiled also. “Exactly one year younger
than I am.”

He drew her nearer, his eyes devouring her. “You,
Stella!” he said. “You are as ageless
as the stars.”

She laughed faintly, not yielding herself to the closer
pressure though not actually resisting it. “That
is merely a form of telling me that I am much older
than I seem,” she said. “And you are
quite right. I am.”

His arm compelled her. “You are you,”
he said. “And you are so divinely young
and beautiful that there is no measuring you by ordinary
standards. They all know it. That is why
you weren’t received into the community with
open arms. You are utterly above and beyond them
all.”

She flinched slightly at the allusion. “I
hope I am not so extraordinary as all that,”
she said.

His arm became insistent. “You are unique,”
he said. “You are superb.”

There was passion barely suppressed in his hold and
a sudden swift shiver went through her. “Oh,
Ralph,” she said, “don’t—–­
don’t worship me too much!”

Her voice quivered in its appeal, but somehow its
pathos passed him by. He saw only her beauty,
and it thrilled every pulse in his body. Fiercely
almost, he strained her to him. And he did not
so much as notice that her lips trembled too piteously
to return his kiss, or that her submission to his
embrace was eloquent of mute endurance rather than
glad surrender. He stood as a conqueror on the
threshold of a newly acquired kingdom and exulted
over the splendour of its treasures because it was
all his own.

It did not even occur to him to doubt that her happiness
fully equalled his. Stella was a woman and reserved;
but she was happy enough, oh, she was happy enough.
With complacence he reflected that if every man in
the mess envied him, probably every woman in the station
would have gladly changed places with her. Was
he not Fortune’s favourite? What happier
fate could any woman desire than to be his bride?

CHAPTER V

THE DREAM

Page 20

It was a fortnight after the wedding, on an evening
of intense heat, that Everard Monck, now established
with Tommy at The Green Bungalow, came in from polo
to find the mail awaiting him. He sauntered in
through the verandah in search of a drink which he
expected to find in the room which Stella during her
brief sojourn had made more dainty and artistic than
the rest, albeit it had never been dignified by the
name of drawing-room. There was light green matting
on the floor and there were also light green cushions
in each of the long wicker chairs. Curtains of
green gauze hung before the windows, and the fierce
sunlight filtering through gave the room a strangely
translucent effect. It was like a chamber under
the sea.

It had been Monck’s intention to have his drink
and pass straight on to his own quarters for a bath,
but the letters on the table caught his eye and he
stopped. Standing in the green dimness with a
tumbler in one hand, he sorted them out. There
were two for himself and two for Tommy, the latter
obviously bills, and under these one more, also for
Tommy in a woman’s clear round writing.
It came from Srinagar, and Monck stood for a second
or two holding it in his hand and staring straight
out before him with eyes that saw not. Just for
those seconds a mocking vision danced gnomelike through
his brain. Just at this moment probably most
of the other men were opening letters from their wives
in the Hills. And he saw the chance he had not
taken like a flash of far, elusive sunlight on the
sky-line of a troubled sea.

The vision passed. He laid down the letter and
took up his own correspondence. One of the letters
was from England. He poured out his drink and
flung himself down to read it.

It came from the only relation he possessed in the
world—­his brother. Bernard Monck was
the elder by fifteen years—­a man of brilliant
capabilities, who had long since relinquished all idea
of worldly advancement in the all-absorbing interest
of a prison chaplaincy. They had not met for
over five years, but they maintained a regular correspondence,
and every month brought to Everard Monck the thin
envelope directed in the square, purposeful handwriting
of the man who had been during the whole of his life
his nearest and best friend. Lying back in the
wicker-chair, relaxed and weary, he opened the letter
and began to read.

Ten minutes later, Tommy Denvers, racing in, also
in polo-kit, stopped short upon the threshold and
stared in shocked amazement as if some sudden horror
had caught him by the throat.

“Great heavens above, Monck! What’s
the matter?” he ejaculated.

Perhaps it was in part due to the green twilight of
the room, but it seemed to him in that first startled
moment that Monck’s face had the look of a man
who had received a deadly wound. The impression
passed almost immediately, but the memory of it was
registered in his brain for all time.

Monck raised the tumbler to his lips and drank before
replying, and as he did so his customary grave composure
became apparent, making Tommy wonder if his senses
had tricked him. He looked at the lad with sombre
eyes as he set down the glass. His brother’s
letter was still gripped in his hand.

Page 21

“Hullo, Tommy!” he said, a shadowy smile
about his mouth. “What are you in such
a deuce of a hurry about?”

Tommy glanced down at the letters on the table and
pounced upon the one that lay uppermost. “A
letter from Stella! And about time, too!
She isn’t much of a correspondent now-a-days.
Where are they now? Oh, Srinagar. Lucky
beggar—­Dacre! Wish he’d taken
me along as well as Stella! What am I in such
a hurry about? Well, my dear chap, look at the
time! You’ll be late for mess yourself if
you don’t buck up.”

Tommy’s treatment of his captain was ever of
the airiest when they were alone. He had never
stood in awe of Monck since the days of his illness;
but even in his most familiar moments his manner was
not without a certain deference. His respect
for him was unbounded, and his pride in their intimacy
was boyishly whole-hearted. There was no sacrifice
great or small that he would not willingly have offered
at Monck’s behest.

And Monck knew it, realized the lad’s devotion
as pure gold, and valued it accordingly. But,
that fact notwithstanding, his faith in Tommy’s
discretion did not move him to bestow his unreserved
confidence upon him. Probably to no man in the
world could he have opened his secret soul. He
was not of an expansive nature. But Tommy occupied
an inner place in his regard, and there were some
things that he veiled from all beside which he no
longer attempted to hide from this faithful follower
of his. Thus far was Tommy privileged.

He got to his feet in response to the boy’s
last remark. “Yes, you’re right.
We ought to be going. I shall be interested to
hear what your sister thinks of Kashmir. I went
up there on a shooting expedition two years after
I came out. It’s a fine country.”

“Is there anywhere that you haven’t been?”
said Tommy. “I believe you’ll write
a book one of these days.”

“You’ll never be on the shelf,”
said Tommy quickly. “You’ll be much
too valuable.”

Monck shrugged his shoulders slightly and turned to
go. “I doubt if that consideration would
occur to any one but you, my boy,” he said.

They walked to the mess-house together a little later
through the airless dark, and there was nothing in
Monck’s manner either then or during the evening
to confirm the doubt in Tommy’s mind. Spirits
were not very high at the mess just then. Nearly
all the women had left for the Hills, and the increasing
heat was beginning to make life a burden. The
younger officers did their best to be cheerful, and
one of them, Bertie Oakes, a merry, brainless youngster,
even proposed an impromptu dance to enliven the proceedings.
But he did not find many supporters. Men were
tired after the polo. Colonel Mansfield and Major
Burton were deeply engrossed with some news that had
been brought by Barnes of the Police, and no one mustered
energy for more than talk.

Page 22

Tommy soon decided to leave early and return to his
letters. Before departing, he looked round for
Monck as was his custom, but finding that he and Captain
Ermsted had also been drawn into the discussion with
the Colonel, he left the mess alone.

Back in The Green Bungalow he flung off his coat and
threw himself down in his shirt-sleeves on the verandah
to read his sister’s letter. The light
from the red-shaded lamp streamed across the pages.
Stella had written very fully of their wanderings,
but her companion she scarcely mentioned.

It was like a gorgeous dream, she said. Each
day seemed to bring greater beauties. They had
spent the first two at Agra to see the wonderful Taj
which of course was wholly beyond description.
Thence they had made their way to Rawal Pindi where
Ralph had several military friends to be introduced
to his bride. It was evident that he was anxious
to display his new possession, and Tommy frowned a
little over that episode, realizing fully why Stella
touched so lightly upon it. For some reason his
dislike of Dacre was increasing rapidly, and he read
the letter very critically. It was the first
with any detail that she had written. From Rawal
Pindi they had journeyed on to exquisite Murree set
in the midst of the pines where only to breathe was
the keenest pleasure. Stella spoke almost wistfully
of this place; she would have loved to linger there.

“I could be happy there in perfect solitude,”
she wrote, “with just Peter the Great to take
care of me.” She mentioned the Sikh bearer
more than once and each time with growing affection.
“He is like an immense and kindly watch-dog,”
she said in one place. “Every material comfort
that I could possibly wish for he manages somehow to
procure, and he is always on guard, always there when
wanted, yet never in the way.”

Their time being limited and Ralph anxious to use
it to the utmost, they had left Murree after a very
brief stay and pressed on into Kashmir, travelling
in a tonga through the most glorious scenery
that Stella had ever beheld.

“I only wished you could have been there to
enjoy it with me,” she wrote, and passed on
to a glowing description of the Hills amidst which
they had travelled, all grandly beautiful and many
capped with the eternal snows. She told of the
River Jhelum, swift and splendid, that flowed beside
the way, of the flowers that bloomed in dazzling profusion
on every side—­wild roses such as she had
never dreamed of, purple acacias, jessamine yellow
and white, maiden-hair ferns that hung in sprays of
living green over the rushing waterfalls, and the vivid,
scarlet pomegranate blossom that grew like a spreading
fire.

And the air that blew through the mountains was as
the very breath of life. Physically, she declared,
she had never felt so well; but she did not speak
of happiness, and again Tommy’s brow contracted
as he read.

For all its enthusiasm, there was to him something
wanting in that letter—­a lack that hurt
him subtly. Why did she say so little of her
companion in the wilderness? No casual reader
would have dreamed that the narrative had been written
by a bride upon her honeymoon.

Page 23

He read on, read of their journey up the river to
Srinagar, punted by native boatmen, and again, as
she spoke of their sad, droning chant, she compared
it all to a dream. “I wonder if I am really
asleep, Tommy,” she wrote, “if I shall
wake up in the middle of a dark night and find that
I have never left England after all. That is
what I feel like sometimes—­almost as if
life had been suspended for awhile. This strange
existence cannot be real. I am sure that at the
heart of me I must be asleep.”

At Srinagar, a native fete had been in progress,
and the howling of men and din of tom-toms
had somewhat marred the harmony of their arrival.
But it was all interesting, like an absorbing fairy-tale,
she said, but quite unreal. She felt sure it
couldn’t be true. Ralph had been disgusted
with the hubbub and confusion. He compared the
place to an asylum of filthy lunatics, and they had
left it without delay. And so at last they had
come to their present abiding-place in the heart of
the wilderness with coolies, pack-horses, and tents,
and were camped beside a rushing stream that filled
the air with its crystal music day and night.
“And this is Heaven,” wrote Stella; “but
it is the Heaven of the Orient, and I am not sure
that I have any part or lot in it. I believe I
shall feel myself an interloper for all time.
I dread to turn each corner lest I should meet the
Angel with the Flaming Sword and be driven forth into
the desert. If only you were here, Tommy, it would
be more real to me. But Ralph is just a part
of the dream. He is almost like an Eastern potentate
himself with his endless cigarettes and his wonderful
capacity for doing nothing all day long without being
bored. Of course, I am not bored, but then no
one ever feels bored in a dream. The lazy well-being
of it all has the effect of a narcotic so far as I
am concerned. I cannot imagine ever feeling active
in this lulling atmosphere. Perhaps there is
too much champagne in the air and I am never wholly
sober. Perhaps it is only in the desert that any
one ever lives to the utmost. The endless singing
of the stream is hushing me into a sweet drowsiness
even as I write. By the way, I wonder if I have
written sense. If not, forgive me! But I
am much too lazy to read it through. I think
I must have eaten of the lotus. Good-bye, Tommy
dear! Write when you can and tell me that all
is well with you, as I think it must be—­though
I cannot tell—­with your always loving, though
for the moment strangely bewitched, sister, Stella.”

Tommy put down the letter and lay still, peering forth
under frowning brows. He could hear Monck’s
footsteps coming through the gate of the compound,
but he was not paying any attention to Monck for once.
His troubled mind scarcely even registered the coming
of his friend.

Only when the latter mounted the steps on to the verandah
and began to move along it, did he turn his head and
realize his presence. Monck came to a stand beside
him.

Page 24

Monck lodged his shoulder against the window-frame.
“I hope she is all right,” he said formally.

His voice sounded pre-occupied. It did not convey
to Tommy the idea that he was greatly interested in
his reply.

He answered with something of an effort. “I
believe she is. She doesn’t really say.
I wish they had been content to stay at Bhulwana.
I could have got leave to go over and see her there.”

“Where exactly are they now?” asked Monck.

Tommy explained to the best of his ability. “Srinagar
seems their nearest point of civilization. They
are camping in the wilderness, but they will have
to move before long. Dacre’s leave will
be up, and they must allow time to get back.
Stella talks as if they are fixed there for ever and
ever.”

“She is enjoying it then?” Monck’s
voice still sounded as if he were thinking of something
else.

Tommy made grudging reply. “I suppose she
is, after a fashion. I’m pretty sure of
one thing.” He spoke with abrupt force.
“She’d enjoy it a deal more if I were
with her instead of Dacre.”

Monck laughed, a curt, dry laugh. “Jealous,
eh?”

“No, I’m not such a fool.”
The boy spoke recklessly. “But I know—­I
can’t help knowing—­that she doesn’t
care twopence about the man. What woman with
any brains could?”

“There’s no accounting for women’s
tastes or actions at any time,” said Monck.
“She liked him well enough to marry him.”

Tommy made an indignant sound. “She was
in a mood to marry any one. She’d probably
have married you if you’d asked her.”

Monck made an abrupt movement as if he had lost his
balance, but he returned to his former position immediately.
“Think so?” he said in a voice that sounded
very ironical. “Then possibly she has had
a lucky escape. I might have been moved to ask
her if she had remained free much longer.”

“I wish to Heaven you had!” said Tommy
bluntly.

And again Monck uttered his short, sardonic laugh.
“Thank you, Tommy,” he said.

There fell a silence between them, and a hot draught
eddied up through the parched compound and rattled
the scorched twigs of the creeping rose on the verandah
with a desolate sound, as if skeleton hands were feeling
along the trellis-work. Tommy suppressed a shudder
and got to his feet.

In the same moment Monck spoke again, deliberately,
emotionlessly, with a hint of grimness. “By
the way, Tommy, I’ve a piece of news for you.
That letter I had from my brother this, evening contained
news of an urgent business matter which only I can
deal with. It has come at a rather unfortunate
moment as Barnes, the policeman, brought some disturbing
information this evening from Khanmulla and the Chief
wanted to make use of me in that quarter. They
are sending a Mission to make investigations and they
wanted me to go in charge of it.”

Page 25

“A chance I’m not going to take,”
rejoined Monck dryly. “I applied for leave
instead. In any case it is due to me, but Dacre
had his turn first. The Chief didn’t want
to grant it, but he gave way in the end. You
boys will have to work a little harder than usual,
that’s all.”

Tommy was staring at him in amazement. “But,
I say, Monck!” he protested. “That
Mission business! It’s the very thing you’d
most enjoy. Surely you can’t be going to
let such an opportunity slip!”

“My own business is more pressing,” Monck
returned briefly.

Then Tommy remembered the stricken look that he had
surprised on his friend’s face that evening,
and swift concern swallowed his astonishment.
“You had bad news from Home! I say, I’m
awfully sorry. Is your brother ill, or what?”

“No. It’s not that. I can’t
discuss it with you, Tommy. But I’ve got
to go. The Chief has granted me eight weeks and
I am off at dawn.” Monck made as if he
would turn inwards with the words.

“Oh, every care.” Monck paused to
lay an unexpected hand upon the lad’s shoulder.
“And you must take care of yourself, Tommy,”
he said. “Don’t get up to any tomfoolery
while I am away! And if you get thirsty, stick
to lime-juice!”

“I’ll be as good as gold,” Tommy
promised, touched alike by action and admonition.
“But it will be pretty beastly without you.
I hate a lonely life, and Stella will be stuck at
Bhulwana for the rest of the hot weather when they
get back.”

“Well, I shan’t stay away for ever,”
Monck patted his shoulder and turned away. “I’m
not going for a pleasure trip, and the sooner it’s
over, the better I shall be pleased.”

He passed into the room with the words, that room
in which Stella had sat on her wedding-eve, gazing
forth into the night. And there came to Tommy,
all-unbidden, a curious, wandering memory of his friend’s
face on that same night, with eyes alight and ardent,
looking upwards as though they saw a vision.
Perplexed and vaguely troubled, he thrust her letter
away into his pocket and went to his own room.

CHAPTER VI

THE GARDEN

The Heaven of the Orient! It was a week since
Stella had penned those words, and still the charm
held her, the wonder grew. Never in her life
had she dreamed of a land so perfect, so subtly alluring,
so overwhelmingly full of enchantment. Day after
day slipped by in what seemed an endless succession.
Night followed magic night, and the spell wound closer
and ever closer about her. She sometimes felt
as if her very individuality were being absorbed into
the marvellous beauty about her, as if she had been
crystallized by it and must soon cease to be in any
sense a being apart from it.

Page 26

The siren-music of the torrent that dashed below their
camping-ground filled her brain day and night.
It seemed to make active thought impossible, to dull
all her senses save the one luxurious sense of enjoyment.
That was always present, slumbrous, almost cloying
in its unfailing sweetness, the fruit of the lotus
which assuredly she was eating day by day. All
her nerves seemed dormant, all her energies lulled.
Sometimes she wondered if the sound of running water
had this stultifying effect upon her, for wherever
they went it followed them. The snow-fed streams
ran everywhere, and since leaving Srinagar she could
not remember a single occasion on which they had been
out of earshot of their perpetual music. It haunted
her like a ceaseless refrain, but yet she never wearied
of it. There was no thought of weariness in this
mazed, dream-world of hers.

At the beginning of her married life, so far behind
her now that she scarcely remembered it, she had gone
through pangs of suffering and fierce regret.
Her whole nature had revolted, and it had taken all
her strength to quell it. But that was long,
long past. She had ceased to feel anything now,
but a dumb and even placid acquiescence in this lethargic
existence, and Ralph Dacre was amply satisfied therewith.
He had always been abundantly confident of his power
to secure her happiness, and he was blissfully unconscious
of the wild impulse to rebellion which she had barely
stifled. He had no desire to sound the deeps
of her. He was quite content with life as he found
it, content to share with her the dreamy pleasures
that lay in this fruitful wilderness, and to look
not beyond.

He troubled himself but little about the future, though
when he thought of it that was with pleasure too.
He liked, now and then, to look forward to the days
that were coming when Stella would shine as a queen—­his
queen—­among an envious crowd. Her position
assured as his wife, even Lady Harriet herself would
have to lower her flag. And how little Netta
Ermsted would grit her teeth! He laughed to himself
whenever he thought of that. Netta had become
too uppish of late. It would be amusing to see
how she took her lesson.

And as for his brother-officers, even the taciturn
Monck had already shown that he was not proof against
Stella’s charms. He wondered what Stella
thought of the man, well knowing that few women liked
him, and one evening, as they sat together in the
scented darkness with the roar of their mountain-stream
filling the silences, he turned their fitful conversation
in Monck’s direction to satisfy his lazy curiosity
in this respect.

“I suppose I ought to write to the fellow,”
he said, “but if you’ve written to Tommy
it’s almost the same thing. Besides, I don’t
suppose he would be in the smallest degree interested.
He would only be bored.”

There was a pause before Stella answered; but she
was often slow of speech in those days. “I
thought you were friends,” she said.

Page 27

“What? Oh, so we are.” Ralph
Dacre laughed, his easy, complacent laugh. “But
he’s a dark horse, you know. I never know
quite how to take him. Your brother Tommy is
a deal more intimate with him than I am, though I
have stabled with him for over four years. He’s
a very clever fellow, there’s no doubt of that—­altogether
too brainy for my taste. Clever fellows always
bore me. Now I wonder how he strikes you.”

Again there was that slight pause before Stella spoke,
but there was nothing very vital about it. She
seemed to be slow in bringing her mind to bear upon
the subject. “I agree with you,” she
said then. “He is clever. And he is
kind too. He has been very good to Tommy.”

“Tommy would lie down and let him walk over
him,” remarked Dacre. “Perhaps that
is what he likes. But he’s a cold-blooded
sort of cuss. I don’t believe he has a
spark of real affection for anybody. He is too
ambitious.”

Dacre inhaled a deep breath of cigar-smoke and puffed
it slowly forth. His curiosity was warming.
“Oh yes, ambitious as they’re made.
Those strong, silent chaps always are. And there’s
no doubt he will make his mark some day. He is
a positive marvel at languages. And he dabbles
in Secret Service matters too, disguises himself and
goes among the natives in the bazaars as one of themselves.
A fellow like that, you know, is simply priceless
to the Government. And he is as tough as leather.
The climate never touches him. He could sit on
a grille and be happy. No doubt he will be a
very big pot some day.” He tipped the ash
from his cigar. “You and I will be comfortably
growing old in a villa at Cheltenham by that time,”
he ended.

A little shiver went through Stella. She said
nothing and silence fell between them again.
The moon was rising behind a rugged line of snow-hills
across the valley, touching them here and there with
a silvery radiance, casting mysterious shadows all
about them, sending a magic twilight over the whole
world so that they saw it dimly, as through a luminous
veil. The scent of Dacre’s cigar hung in
the air, fragrant, aromatic, Eastern. He was
sleepily watching his wife’s pure profile as
she gazed into her world of dreams. It was evident
that she took small interest in Monck and his probable
career. It was not surprising. Monck was
not the sort of man to attract women; he cared so
little about them—­this silent watcher whose
eyes were ever searching below the surface of Eastern
life, who studied and read and knew so much more than
any one else and yet who guarded knowledge and methods
so closely that only those in contact with his daily
life suspected what he hid.

“He will surprise us all some day,” Dacre
placidly reflected. “Those quiet, ambitious
chaps always soar high. But I wouldn’t change
places. with him even if he wins to the top of the
tree. People who make a specialty of hard work
never get any fun out of anything. By the time
the fun comes along, they are too old to enjoy it.”

Page 28

And so he lay at ease in his chair, feasting his eyes
upon his young wife’s grave face, savouring
life with the zest of the epicurean, placidly at peace
with all the world on that night of dreams.

It was growing late, and the moon had topped the distant
peaks sending a flood of light across the sleeping
valley before he finally threw away the stump of his
cigar and stretched forth a lazy arm to draw her to
him.

“Why so silent, Star of my heart? Where
are those wandering thoughts of yours?”

She submitted as usual to his touch, passively, without
enthusiasm. “My thoughts are not worth
expressing, Ralph,” she said.

“Let us hear them all the same!” he said,
laying his head against her shoulder.

She sat very still in his hold. “I was
only watching the moonlight,” she said.
“Somehow it made me think—­of a flaming
sword.”

“Turning all ways?” he suggested, indolently
humorous. “Not driving us forth out of
the garden of Eden, I hope? That would be a little
hard on two such inoffensive mortals as we are, eh,
sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” she said seriously.
“I doubt if the plea of inoffensiveness would
open the gates of Heaven to any one.”

He laughed. “I can’t talk ethics
at this time of night, Star of my heart. It’s
time we went to our lair. I believe you would
sit here till sunrise if I would let you, you most
ethereal of women. Do you ever think of your
body at all, I wonder?”

He kissed her neck with the careless words, and a
quick shiver went through her. She made a slight,
scarcely perceptible movement to free herself.

But the next moment sharply, almost convulsively,
she grasped his arm. “Ralph! What
is that?”

She was gazing towards the shadow cast by a patch
of flowering azalea in the moonlight about ten yards
from where they sat. Dacre raised himself with
leisurely self-assurance and peered in the same direction.
It was not his nature to be easily disturbed.

But Stella’s hand still clung to his arm, and
there was agitation in her hold. “What
is it?” she whispered. “What can it
be? I have seen it move—­twice.
Ah, look! Is it—­is it—­a
panther?”

“Good gracious, child, no!” Carelessly
he made response, and with the words disengaged himself
from her hand and stood up. “It’s
more probably some filthy old beggar who fondly thinks
he is going to get backsheesh for disturbing
us. You stay here while I go and investigate!”

But some nervous impulse goaded Stella. She also
started up, holding him back. “Oh, don’t
go, Ralph! Don’t go! Call one of the
men! Call Peter!”

He laughed at her agitation. “My dear girl,
don’t be absurd! I don’t want Peter
to help me kick a beastly native. In fact he probably
wouldn’t lower himself to do such a thing.”

But still she clung to him. “Ralph, don’t
go! Please don’t go! I have a feeling—­I
am afraid—­I—­” She broke
off panting, her fingers tightly clutching his sleeve.
“Don’t go!” she reiterated.

Page 29

He put his arm round her. “My dear, what
do you think a tatterdemalion gipsy is going to do
to me? He may be a snake-charmer, and if so the
sooner he is got rid of the better. There!
What did I tell you? He is coming out of his
corner. Now, don’t be frightened! It
doesn’t do to show funk to these people.”

He held her closely to him and waited. Beside
the flowering azalea something was undoubtedly moving,
and as they stood and watched, a strange figure slowly
detached itself from the shadows and crept towards
them. It was clad in native garments and shuffled
along in a bent attitude as if deformed. Stella
stiffened as she stood. There was something unspeakably
repellent to her in its toadlike advance.

“Make one of the men send him away!” she
whispered urgently. “Please do! It
may be a snake-charmer as you say. He moves like
a reptile himself. And I—­abhor snakes.”

But Dacre stood his ground. He felt none of her
shrinking horror of the bowed, misshapen creature
approaching them. In fact he was only curious
to see how far a Kashmiri beggar’s audacity would
carry him.

Within half a dozen paces of them, in the full moonlight,
the shambling figure halted and salaamed with clawlike
hands extended. His deformity bent him almost
double, but he was so muffled in rags that it was
difficult to discern any tangible human shape at all.
A tangled black beard hung wisplike from the dirty
chuddah that draped his head, and above it
two eyes, fevered and furtive, peered strangely forth.

The salaam completed, the intruder straightened himself
as far as his infirmity would permit, and in a moment
spoke in the weak accents of an old, old man.
“Will his most gracious excellency be pleased
to permit one who is as the dust beneath his feet
to speak in his presence words which only he may hear?”

It was the whine of the Hindu beggar, halting, supplicatory,
almost revoltingly servile. Stella shuddered
with disgust. The whole episode was so utterly
out of place in that moonlit paradise. But Dacre’s
curiosity was evidently aroused. To her urgent
whisper to send the man away he paid no heed.
Some spirit of perversity—­or was it the
hand of Fate upon him?—­made him bestow
his supercilious attention upon the cringing visitor.

“Speak away, you son of a centipede!”
he made kindly rejoinder. “I am all ears—­the
mem-sahib also.”

The man waved a skinny, protesting arm. “Only
his most gracious excellency!” he insisted,
seeming to utter the words through parched lips.
“Will not his excellency deign to give his unworthy
servant one precious moment that he may speak in the
august one’s ear alone?”

“This is highly mysterious,” commented
Dacre. “I think I shall have to find out
what he wants, eh, Stella? His information may
be valuable.”

“Oh, do send him away!” Stella entreated.
“I am not used to these natives. They frighten
me.”

Page 30

“My dear child, what nonsense!” laughed
Dacre. “What harm do you imagine a doddering
old fool like this could do to any one? If I were
Monck, I should invite him to join the party.
Not being Monck, I propose to hear what he has to
say and then kick him out. You run along to bed,
dear! I’ll soon settle him and follow you.
Don’t be uneasy! There is really no need.”

He kissed her lightly with the words, flattered by
her evident anxiety on his behalf though fully determined
to ignore it.

Stella turned beside him in silence, aware that he
could be immovably obstinate when once his mind was
made up. But the feeling of dread remained upon
her. In some fantastic fashion the beauty of the
night had become marred, as though evil spirits were
abroad. For the first time she wanted to keep
her husband at her side.

But it was useless to protest. She was moreover
half-ashamed herself at her uneasiness, and his treatment
of it stung her into the determination to dismiss
it. She parted with him before their tent with
no further sign of reluctance.

He on his part kissed her in his usual voluptuous
fashion. “Good-night, darling!” he
said lightly. “Don’t lie awake for
me! When I have got rid of this old Arabian Nights
sinner, I may have another smoke. But don’t
get impatient! I shan’t be late.”

She withdrew herself from him almost with coldness.
Had she ever been impatient for his coming? She
entered the tent proudly, her head high. But
the moment she was alone, reaction came. She stood
with her hands gripped together, fighting the old
intolerable misgiving that even the lulling magic
all around her had never succeeded in stilling.
What was she doing in this garden of delights with
a man she did not love? Had she not entered as
it were by stealth? How long would it be before
her presence was discovered and she thrust forth into
the outermost darkness in shame and bitterness of
soul?

Another thought was struggling at the back of her
mind, but she held it firmly there. Never once
had she suffered it to take full possession of her.
It belonged to that other life which she had found
too hard to endure. Vain regrets and futile longings—­she
would have none of them. She had chosen her lot,
she would abide by the choice. Yes, and she would
do her duty also, whatever it might entail. Ralph
should never know, never dimly suspect. And that
other—­he would never know either.
His had been but a passing fancy. He trod the
way of ambition, and there was no room in his life
for anything besides. If she had shown him her
heart, it had been but a momentary glimpse; and he
had forgotten already. She was sure he had forgotten.
And she had desired that he should forget. He
had penetrated her stronghold indeed, but it was only
as it were the outer defences that had fallen.
He had not reached the inner fort. No man would
ever reach that now—­certainly, most certainly,
not the man to whom she had given herself. And
to none other would the chance be offered.

Page 31

No, she was secure; she was secure. She guarded
her heart from all. And she could not suffer
deeply—­so she told herself—­so
long as she kept it close. Yet, as the wonder-music
of the torrent lulled her to sleep, a face she knew,
dark, strong, full of silent purpose, rose before her
inner vision and would not be driven forth. What
was he doing to-night? Was he wandering about
the bazaars in some disguise, learning the secrets
of that strange native India that had drawn him into
her toils? She tried to picture that hidden life
of his, but could not. The keen, steady eyes,
set in that calm, emotionless face, held her persistently,
defeating imagination. Of one thing only was she
certain. He might baffle others, but by no amount
of ingenuity could he ever deceive her. She would
recognize him in a moment whatever his disguise.
She was sure that she would know him. Those grave,
unflinching eyes would surely give him away to any
who really knew him. So ran her thoughts on that
night of magic till at last sleep came, and the vision
faded. The last thing she knew was a memory that
awoke and mocked her—­the sound of a low
voice that in spite of herself she had to hear.

“I was waiting,” said the voice, “till
my turn should come.”

With a sharp pang she cast the memory from her—­and
slept.

CHAPTER VII

THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN

“Now, you old sinner! Let’s hear
your valuable piece of information!” Carelessly
Ralph Dacre sauntered forth again into the moonlight
and confronted the tatterdemalion figure of his visitor.

The contrast between them was almost fantastic so
strongly did the arrogance of the one emphasize the
deep abasement of the other. Dacre was of large
build and inclined to stoutness. He had the ruddy
complexion of the English country squire. He moved
with the swagger of the conquering race.

The man who cringed before him, palsied, misshapen,
a mere wreck of humanity, might have been a being
from another sphere—­some underworld of
bizarre creatures that crawled purblind among shadows.

He salaamed again profoundly in response to Dacre’s
contemptuous words, nearly rubbing his forehead upon
the ground. “His most noble excellency
is pleased to be gracious,” he murmured.
“If he will deign to follow his miserably unworthy
servant up the goat-path where none may overhear, he
will speak his message and depart.”

“Oh, it’s a message, is it?” With
a species of scornful tolerance Dacre turned towards
the path indicated. “Well, lead on!
I’m not coming far—­no, not for untold
wealth. Nor am I going to waste much time over
you. I have better things to do.”

The old man turned also with a cringing movement.
“Only a little way, most noble!” he said
in his thin, cracked voice. “Only a little
way!”

Hobbling painfully, he began the ascent in front of
the strolling Englishman. The path ran steeply
up between close-growing shrubs, following the winding
of the torrent far below. In places the hillside
was precipitous and the roar of the stream rose louder
as it dashed among its rocks. The heavy scent
of the azalea flowers hung like incense everywhere,
mingling aromatically with the smoke from Dacre’s
newly lighted cigar.

Page 32

With his hands in his pockets he followed his guide
with long, easy strides. The ascent was nothing
to him, and the other’s halting progress brought
a smile of contemptuous pity to his lips. What
did the old rascal expect to gain from the interview
he wondered?

Up and up the narrow path they went, till at length
a small natural platform in the shoulder of the hill
was reached, and here the ragged creature in front
of Dacre paused and turned.

The moonlight smote full upon him, revealing him in
every repulsive detail. His eyes burned in their
red-rimmed sockets as he lifted them. But he
did not speak even after the careless saunter of the
Englishman had ceased at his side. The dash of
the stream far below rose up like the muffled roar
of a train in a tunnel. The bed of it was very
narrow at that point and the current swift.

For a moment or two Dacre stood waiting, the cigar
still between his lips, his eyes upon the gleaming
caps of the snow-hills far away. But very soon
the spell of them fell from him. It was not his
nature to remain silent for long.

With his easy, superior laugh he turned and looked
his motionless companion up and down. “Well?”
he said. “Have you brought me here to admire
the view? Very fine no doubt; but I could have
done it without your guidance.”

There was no immediate reply to his carelessly flung
query, and faint curiosity arose within him mingling
with his strong contempt. He pulled a hand out
of his pocket and displayed a few annas in his
palm.

“Well?” he said again. “What
may this valuable piece of information be worth?”

The other made an abrupt movement; it was almost as
if he curbed some savage impulse to violence.
He moved back a pace, and there in the moonlight before
Dacre’s insolent gaze—­he changed.

With a deep breath he straightened himself to the
height of a tall man. The bent contorted limbs
became lithe and strong. The cringing humility
slipped from him like a garment. He stood upright
and faced Ralph Dacre—­a man in the prime
of life.

“That,” he said, “is a matter of
opinion. So far as I am concerned, it has cost
a damned uncomfortable journey. But—­it
will probably cost you more than that.”

“Great—­Jupiter!” said Dacre.

He stood and stared and stared. The curt speech,
the almost fiercely contemptuous bearing, the absolute,
unwavering assurance of this man whom but a moment
before he had so arrogantly trampled underfoot sent
through him such a shock of amazement as nearly deprived
him of the power to think. Perhaps for the first
time in his life he was utterly and completely at
a loss. Only as he gazed at the man before him,
there came upon him, sudden as a blow, the memory
of a certain hot day more than a year before when
he and Everard Monck had wrestled together in the
Club gymnasium for the benefit of a little crowd of
subalterns who had eagerly betted upon the result.
It had been sinew versus weight, and after
a tough struggle sinew had prevailed. He remembered
the unpleasant sensation of defeat even now though
he had had the grit to take it like a man and get
up laughing. It was one of the very few occasions
he could remember upon which he had been worsted.

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But now—­to-night—­he was face
to face with something of an infinitely more serious
nature. This man with the stern, accusing eyes
and wholly merciless attitude—­what had
he come to say? An odd sensation stirred at Dacre’s
heart like an unsteady hand knocking for admittance.
There was something wrong here—–­
something wrong.

“You—­madman!” he said at length,
and with the words pulled himself together with a
giant effort. “What in the name of wonder
are you doing here?” He had bitten his cigar
through in his astonishment, and he tossed it away
as he spoke with a gesture of returning confidence.
He silenced the uneasy foreboding within and met the
hard eyes that confronted him without discomfiture.
“What’s your game?” he said.
“You have come to tell me something, I suppose.
But why on earth couldn’t you write it?”

“The written word is not always effectual,”
the other man said.

He put up a hand abruptly and stripped the ragged
hair from his face, pushing back the heavy folds of
the chuddah that enveloped his head as he did
so. His features gleamed in the moonlight, lean
and brown, unmistakably British.

“Monck!” said Dacre, in the tone of one
verifying a suspicion.

“Yes—­Monck.” Grimly the
other repeated the name. “I’ve had
considerable trouble in following you here. I
shouldn’t have taken it if I hadn’t had
a very urgent reason.”

“Well, what the devil is it?” Dacre spoke
with the exasperation of a man who knows himself to
be at a disadvantage. “If you want to know
my opinion, I regard such conduct as damned intrusive
at such a time. But if you’ve any decent
excuse let’s hear it!”

He had never adopted that tone to Monck before, but
he had been rudely jolted out of his usually complacent
attitude, and he resented Monck’s presence.
Moreover, an unpleasant sense of inferiority had begun
to make itself felt. There was something judicial
about Monck—­something inexorable and condemnatory—­something
that aroused in him every instinct of self-defence.

But Monck met his blustering demand with the utmost
calm. It was as if he held him in a grip of iron
intention from which no struggles, however desperate,
could set him free.

He took an envelope from the folds of his ragged raiment.
“I believe you have heard me speak of my brother
Bernard,” he said, “chaplain of Charthurst
Prison.”

Dacre nodded. “The fellow who writes to
you every month. Well? What of him?”

Monck’s steady fingers detached and unfolded
a letter. “You had better read for yourself,”
he said, and held it out.

But curiously Dacre hung back as if unwilling to touch
it.

“Can’t you tell me what all the fuss is
about?” he said irritably.

Monck’s hand remained inflexibly extended.
He spoke, a jarring note in his voice. “Oh
yes, I can tell you. But you had better see for
yourself too. It concerns you very nearly.
It was written in Charthurst Prison nearly six weeks
ago, where a woman who calls herself your wife is
undergoing a term of imprisonment for forgery.”

Page 34

“Damnation!” Ralph Dacre actually staggered
as if he had received a blow between the eyes.
But almost in the next moment he recovered himself,
and uttered a quivering laugh. “Man alive!
You are not fool enough to believe such a cock-and-bull
story as that!” he said. “And you
have come all this way in this fancy get-up to tell
me! You must be mad!”

Monck was still holding out the letter. “You
had better see for yourself,” he reiterated.
“It is damnably circumstantial.”

“I tell you it’s an infernal lie!”
flung back Dacre furiously. “There is no
woman on this earth who has any claim on me—­except
Stella. Why should I read it? I tell you
it’s nothing but damned fabrication—­a
tissue of abominable falsehood!”

“You mean to deny that you have ever been through
any form of marriage before?” said Monck slowly.

“Of course I do!” Dacre uttered another
angry laugh. “You must be a positive fool
to imagine such a thing. It’s preposterous,
unheard of! Of course I have never been married
before. What are you thinking of?”

Monck remained unmoved. “She has been a
music-hall actress,” he said. “Her
name is—­or was—­Madelina Belleville.
Do you tell me that you have never had any dealings
whatever with her?”

Dacre laughed again fiercely, scoffingly. “You
don’t imagine that I would marry a woman of
that sort, do you?” he said.

“That is no answer to my question,” Monck
said firmly.

“Confound you!” Dacre blazed into open
wrath. “Who the devil are you to enquire
into my private affairs? Do you think I am going
to put up with your damned impertinence? What?”

“I think you will have to.” Monck
spoke quitely, but there was deadly determination
in his words. “It’s a choice of evils,
and if you are wise you will choose the least.
Are you going to read the letter?”

Dacre stared at him for a moment or two with eyes
of glowering resentment; but in the end he put forth
a hand not wholly steady and took the sheet held out
to him. Monck stood beside him in utter immobility,
gazing out over the valley with a changeless vigilance
that had about it something fateful.

Minutes passed. Dacre seemed unable to lift his
eyes from the page. But it fluttered in his hold,
though the night was still, as if a strong wind were
blowing.

Suddenly he moved, as one who violently breaks free
from some fettering spell. He uttered a bitter
oath and tore the sheet of paper passionately to fragments.
He flung them to the ground and trampled them underfoot.

“Ten million curses on her!” he raved.
“She has been the bane of my life!”

Monck’s eyes came out of the distance and surveyed
him, coldly curious. “I thought so,”
he said, and in his voice was an odd inflection as
of one who checks a laugh at an ill-timed jest.

Dacre stamped again like an infuriated bull.
“If I had her here—­I’d strangle
her!” he swore. “That brother of yours
is an artist. He has sketched her to the life—­the
she-devil!” His voice cracked and broke.
He was breathing like a man in torture. He swayed
as he stood.

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And still Monck remained passive, grim and cold and
unyielding. “How long is it since you married
her?” he questioned at last.

“I tell you I never married her!” Desperately
Dacre sought to recover lost ground, but he had slipped
too far.

Dacre glared at him, but his glare was that of the
hunted animal trapped and helpless. He was conquered,
and he knew it.

Calmly Monck continued. “There is not much
doubt that she holds proof of the marriage, and she
will probably try to establish it as soon as she is
free.”

“She will never get anything more out of me,”
said Dacre. His voice was low and sullen.
There was that in the other man’s attitude that
stilled his fury, rendering it futile, even in a fashion
ridiculous.

“I am not thinking of you.” Monck’s
coldness had in it something brutal. “You
are not the only person concerned. But the fact
remains—­this woman is your wife. You
may as well tell the truth about it as not—­since
I know.”

Dacre jerked his head like an angry bull, but he submitted.
“Oh well, if you must have it, I suppose she
was—­once,” he said. “She
caught me when I was a kid of twenty-one. She
was a bad ’un even then, and it didn’t
take me long to find it out. I could have divorced
her several times over, only the marriage was a secret
and I didn’t want my people to know. The
last I heard of her was that her name was among the
drowned on a wrecked liner going to America.
That was six years ago or more; and I was thankful
to be rid of her. I regarded her death as one
of the biggest slices of luck I’d ever had.
And now—­curse her!”—­he
ended savagely—­“she has come to life
again!”

He glanced at Monck with the words, almost as if seeking
sympathy; but Monck’s face was masklike in its
unresponsiveness. He said nothing whatever.

In a moment Dacre took up the tale. “I’ve
considered myself free ever since we separated, after
only six weeks together. Any man would. It
was nothing but a passing fancy. Heaven knows
why I was fool enough to marry her, except that I
had high-flown ideas of honour in those days, and I
got drawn in. She never regarded it as binding,
so why in thunder should I?” He spoke indignantly,
as one who had the right of complaint.

Dacre winced a little. “I don’t profess
to be anything extraordinary,” he said.
“But I maintain that marriage gives no woman
the right to wreck a man’s life. She has
no more claim upon me now than the man in the moon.
If she tries to assert it, she will soon find her mistake.”
He was beginning to recover his balance, and there
was even a hint of his customary complacence audible
in his voice as he made the declaration. “But
there is no reason to believe she will,” he added.
“She knows very well that she has nothing whatever
to gain by it. Your brother seems to have gathered
but a vague idea of the affair. You had better
write and tell him that the Dacre he means is dead.
Your brother-officer belongs to another branch of
the family. That ought to satisfy everybody and
no great harm done, what?”

Page 36

He uttered the last word with a tentative, disarming
smile. He was not quite sure of his man, but
it seemed to him that even Monck must see the utter
futility of making a disturbance about the affair at
this stage. Matters had gone so far that silence
was the only course—­silence on his part,
a judicious lie or two on the part of Monck. He
did not see how the latter could refuse to render
him so small a service. As he himself had remarked
but a few moments before, he, Dacre, was not the only
person concerned.

But the absolute and uncompromising silence with which
his easy suggestion was received was disquieting.
He hastened to break it, divining that the longer
it lasted the less was it likely to end in his favour.

“Come, I say!” he urged on a friendly
note. “You can’t refuse to do this
much for a comrade in a tight corner! I’d
do the same for you and more. And remember, it
isn’t my happiness alone that hangs in the balance!
We’ve got to think of—­Stella!”

Monck moved at that, moved sharply, almost with violence.
Yet, when he spoke, his voice was still deliberate,
cuttingly distinct. “Yes,” he said.
“And her honour is worth about as much to you,
apparently, as your own! I am thinking of her—­and
of her only. And, so far as I can see, there
is only one thing to be done.”

“Oh, indeed!” Dacre’s air of half-humorous
persuasion dissolved into insolence. “And
I am to do it, am I? Your humble servant to command!”

Monck stretched forth a sinewy arm and slowly closed
his fist under the other man’s eyes. “You
will do it—­yes,” he said. “I
hold you—­like that.”

Dacre flinched slightly in spite of himself.
“What do you mean? You would never be such
a—­such a cur—­as to give me away?”

Monck made a sound that was too full of bitterness
to be termed a laugh. “You’re such
an infernal blackguard,” he said, “that
I don’t care a damn whether you go to the devil
or not. The only thing that concerns me is how
to protect a woman’s honour that you have dared
to jeopardize, how to save her from open shame.
It won’t be an easy matter, but it can be done,
and it shall be done. Now listen!” His voice
rang suddenly hard, almost metallic. “If
this thing is to be kept from her—­as it
must be—­as it shall be—­you must
drop out—­vanish. So far as she is
concerned you must die to-night.”

“I?” Dacre stared at him in startled incredulity.
“Man, are you mad?”

“I am not.” Keen as bared steel came
the answer. Monck’s impassivity was gone.
His face was darkly passionate, his whole bearing that
of a man relentlessly set upon obtaining the mastery.
“But if you imagine her safety can be secured
without a sacrifice, you are wrong. Do you think
I am going to stand tamely by and see an innocent
woman dragged down to your beastly level? What
do you suppose her point of view would be? How
would she treat the situation if she ever came to know?
I believe she would kill herself.”

Page 37

“But she never need know! She never shall
know!” There was a note of desperation in Dacre’s
rejoinder. “You have only got to hush it
up, and it will die a natural death. That she-devil
will never take the trouble to follow me out here.
Why should she? She knows very well that she has
no claim whatever upon me. Stella is the only
woman who has any claim upon me now.”

“You are right.” Grimly Monck took
him up. “And her claim is the claim of
an honourable woman to honourable treatment. And
so far as lies in your power and mine, she shall have
it. That is why you will do this thing—­disappear
to-night, go out of her life for good, and let her
think you dead. I will undertake then that the
truth shall never reach her. She will be safe.
But there can be no middle course. She shall not
be exposed to the damnable risk of finding herself
stranded.”

He ceased to speak, and in the moonlight their eyes
met as the eyes of men who grip together in a death-struggle.

The silence between them was more terrible than words.
It held unutterable things.

Dacre spoke at last, his voice low and hoarse.
“I can’t do it. There is too much
involved. Besides, it wouldn’t really help.
She would come to know inevitably.”

“She will never know.” Inexorably
came the answer, spoken with pitiless insistence.
“As to ways and means, I have provided for them.
It won’t be difficult in this wilderness to
cover your tracks. When the news has gone forth
that you are dead, no one will look for you.”

A hard shiver went through Dacre. His hands clenched.
He was as a man in the presence of his executioner.
The paralysing spell was upon him again, constricting
as a rope about his neck. But sacrifice was no
part of his nature. With despair at his heart,
he yet made a desperate bid for freedom.

“The whole business is outrageous!” he
said. “It is out of the question.
I refuse to do it. Matters have gone too far.
To all intents and purposes, Stella is my wife, and
I’m damned if any one shall come between us.
You may do your worst! I refuse.”

Defiance was his only weapon, and he hurled it with
all his strength; but the moment he had done so, he
realized the hopelessness of the venture. Monck
made a single, swift movement, and in a moment the
moonlight glinted upon the polished muzzle of a Service
revolver. He spoke, briefly, with iron coldness.

“The choice is yours. Only—­if
you refuse to give her—­the sanctuary of
widowhood—­I will! After all it would
be the safest way for all concerned.”

“True!” Dacre was looking him full in
the eyes with more of curiosity than apprehension.
“And—­as you have foreseen—­I
shall not refuse under those circumstances. It
would have saved time if you had put it in that light
before.”

Page 38

“It would. But I hoped you might have the
decency to act without—­persuasion.”
Monck was speaking between his teeth, but the revolver
was concealed again in the folds of his garment.
“You will leave to-night—­at once—­without
seeing her again. That is understood.”

It was the end of the conflict. Dacre attempted
no further resistance. He was not the man to
waste himself upon a cause that he realized to be
hopeless. Moreover, there was about Monck at that
moment a force that restrained him, compelled instinctive
respect. Though he hated the man for his mastery,
he could not despise him. For he knew that what
he had done had been done through a rigid sense of
honour and that chivalry which goes hand in hand with
honour—­the chivalry with which no woman
would have credited him.

That Monck had nought but the most disinterested regard
for any woman, he firmly believed, and probably that
conviction gave added strength to his position.
That he should fight thus for a mere principle, though
incomprehensible in Dacre’s opinion, was a circumstance
that carried infinitely more weight than more personal
championship. Monck was the one man of his acquaintance
who had never displayed the smallest desire to compete
for any woman’s favour, who had never indeed
shown himself to be drawn by any feminine attractions,
and his sudden assumption of authority was therefore
unassailable. In yielding to the greater power,
Dacre yielded to a moral force rather than to human
compulsion. And though driven sorely against
his will, he respected the power that drove.
His dumb gesture of acquiescence conveyed as much as
he turned away relinquishing the struggle.

He had fought hard, and he had been defeated.
It was bitter enough, but after all he had had his
turn. The first hot rapture was already passing.
Love in the wilderness could not last for ever.
It had been fierce enough—­too fierce to
endure. And characteristically he reflected that
Stella’s cold beauty would not have held him
for long. He preferred something more ardent,
more living. Moreover, his nature demanded a
certain meed of homage from the object of his desire,
and undeniably this had been conspicuously lacking.
Stella was evidently one to accept rather than to
give, and there had been moments when this had slightly
galled him. She seemed to him fundamentally incapable
of any deep feeling, and though this had not begun
to affect their relations at present, he had realized
in a vague fashion that because of it she would not
hold him for ever. So, after the first, he knew
that he would find consolation. Certainly he
would not break his heart for her or for any woman,
nor did he flatter himself that she would break hers
for him.

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Meantime—­he prepared to shrug his shoulders
over the inevitable. Things might have been much
worse. And perhaps on the whole it was safer to
obey Monck’s command and go. An open scandal
would really be a good deal worse for him than for
Stella, who had little to lose, and there was no knowing
what might happen if he took the risk and remained.
Emphatically he had no desire to face a personal reckoning
at some future date with the she-devil who had been
the bane of his existence. It was an unlikely
contingency but undoubtedly it existed, and he hated
unpleasantness of all kinds. So, philosophically,
he resolved to adjust himself to this burden.
There was something of the adventurer in his blood
and he had a vast belief in his own ultimate good
luck. Fortune might frown for awhile, but he
knew that he was Fortune’s favourite notwithstanding.
And very soon she would smile again.

But for Monck he had only the bitter hate of the conquered.
He cast a malevolent look upon him with eyes that
were oddly narrowed—­a measuring, speculative
look that comprehended his strength and registered
the infallibility thereof with loathing. “I
wonder what happened to the serpent,” he said,
“when the man and woman were thrust out of the
garden.”

Monck had readjusted his disguise. He looked
back with baffling, inscrutable eyes, his dark face
masklike in its impenetrability. But he spoke
no word in answer. He had said his say. Like
a mantle he gathered his reserve about him again,
as a man resuming a solitary journey through the desert
which all his life he had travelled alone.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FORBIDDEN PARADISE

Looking back later upon that fateful night, it seemed
to Stella that she must indeed have slept the sleep
of the lotus-eater, for no misgivings pierced the
numb unconsciousness that held her through the still
hours. She lay as one in a trance, wholly insensible
of the fact that she was alone, aware only of the
perpetual rush and fall of the torrent below, which
seemed to act like a narcotic upon her brain.

When she awoke at length broad daylight was all about
her, and above the roar of the stream there was rising
a hubbub of voices like the buzzing of a swarm of
bees. She lay for awhile listening to it, lazily
wondering why the coolies should bring their breakfast
so much nearer to the tent than usually, and then,
suddenly and terribly, there came a cry that seemed
to transfix her, stabbing her heavy senses to full
consciousness.

For a second or two she lay as if petrified, every
limb struck powerless, every nerve strained to listen.
Who had uttered that dreadful wail? What did
it portend? Then, her strength returning, she
started up, and knew that she was alone. The
camp-bed by her side was empty. It had not been
touched. Fear, nameless and chill, swept through
her. She felt her very heart turn cold.

Page 40

Shivering, she seized a wrap, and crept to the tent-entrance.
The flap was unfastened, just as it had been left
by her husband the night before. With shaking
fingers she drew it aside and looked forth.

The hubbub of voices had died down to awed whisperings.
A group of coolies huddled in the open space before
her like an assembly of monkeys holding an important
discussion.

Further away, with distorted limbs and grim, impassive
countenance, crouched the black-bearded beggar whose
importunity had lured Ralph from her side the previous
evening. His red-rimmed, sunken eyes gazed like
the eyes of a dead man straight into the sunrise.
So motionless were they, so utterly void of expression,
that she thought they must be blind. There was
something fateful, something terrible in the aloofness
of him. It was as if an invisible circle surrounded
him within which none might intrude.

And close at hand—­so close that she could
have touched his turbaned head as she stood—­the
great Sikh bearer, Peter, sat huddled in a heap on
the soft green earth and rocked himself to and fro
like a child in trouble. She knew at the first
glance that it was he who had uttered that anguished
wail.

To him she turned, as to the only being she could
trust in that strange scene.

“Peter,” she said, “what has happened?
What is wrong? Where—­where is the
captain sahib?”

He gave a great start at the sound of her voice above
him, and instantly, with a rapid noiseless movement,
arose and bent himself before her.

“The mem-sahib will pardon her servant,”
he said, and she saw that his dark face was twisted
with emotion. “But there is bad news for
her to-day. The captain sahib has gone.”

“Gone!” Stella echoed the word uncomprehendingly,
as one who speaks an unknown language.

Peter’s look fell before the wide questioning
of hers. He replied almost under his breath:
“Mem-sahib, it was in the still hour of
the night. The captain sahib slept on
the mountain, and in his sleep he fell—­and
was taken away by the stream.”

Peter stretched a hand towards the inscrutable stranger.
“This man, mem-sahib,” he said
with reverence, “he is a holy man, and while
praying upon the mountain top, he saw the sahib,
sunk in a deep sleep, fall forward over the rock as
if a hand had touched him. He came down and searched
for him, mem-sahib; but he was gone. The
snows are melting, and the water runs swift and deep.”

“Ah!” It was a gasp rather than an exclamation.
Stella was blindly tottering against the tent-rope,
clutching vaguely for support.

The great Sikh caught her ere she fell, his own distress
subdued in a flash before the urgency of her need.
“Lean on me, mem-sahib!” he said,
deference and devotion mingling in his voice.

Page 41

She accepted his help instinctively, scarcely knowing
what she did, and very gently, with a woman’s
tenderness, he led her back into the tent.

“My mem-sahib must rest,” he said.
“And I will find a woman to serve her.”

She opened her eyes with a dizzy sense of wonder.
Peter had never failed before to procure anything
that she wanted, but even in her extremity she had
a curiously irrelevant moment of conjecture as to where
he would turn in the wilderness for the commodity
he so confidently mentioned.

Then, the anguish returning, she checked his motion
to depart. “No, no, Peter,” she said,
commanding her voice with difficulty. “There
is no need for that. I am quite all right.
But—­but—­tell me more! How
did this happen? Why did he sleep on the mountain?”

“How should the mem-sahib’s servant
know?” questioned Peter, gently and deferentially,
as one who reasoned with a child. “It may
be that the opium of his cigar was stronger than usual.
But how can I tell?”

“Opium! He never smoked opium!” Stella
gazed upon him in fresh bewilderment. “Surely—­surely
not!” she said, as though seeking to convince
herself.

“Mem-sahib, how should I know?”
the Indian murmured soothingly.

She became suddenly aware that further inaction was
unendurable. She must see for herself. She
must know the whole, dreadful truth. Though trembling
from head to foot, she spoke with decision. “Peter,
go outside and wait for me! Keep that old beggar
too! Don’t let him go! As soon as
I am dressed, we will go to—­the place—­and—­look
for him.”

She stumbled over the last words, but she spoke them
bravely. Peter straightened himself, recognizing
the voice of authority. With a deep salaam, he
turned and passed out, drawing the tent-flap decorously
into place behind him.

And then with fevered energy, Stella dressed.
Her hands moved with lightning speed though her body
felt curiously weighted and unnatural. The fantastic
thought crossed her brain that it was as though she
prepared herself for her own funeral.

No sound reached her from without, save only the monotonous
and endless dashing of the torrent among its boulders.
She was beginning to feel that the sound in some fashion
expressed a curse.

When she was ready at length, she stood for a second
or two to gather her strength. She still felt
ill and dizzy, as though the world she knew had suddenly
fallen away from her and left her struggling in unimaginable
space, like a swimmer in deep waters. But she
conquered her weakness, and, drawing aside the tent-flap
once more, she stepped forth.

The morning sun struck full upon her. It was
as if the whole earth rushed to meet her in a riot
of rejoicing; but she was in some fashion outside
and beyond it all. The glow could not reach her.

Page 42

With a sharp sense of revulsion, she saw the deformed
man squatting close to her, his chuddah-draped
head lodged upon his knees. He did not stir at
her coming though she felt convinced that he was aware
of her, aware probably of everything that passed within
a considerable radius of his disreputable person.
His dark face, lined and dirty, half-covered with
ragged black hair that ended in a long thin wisp like
a goat’s beard on his shrunken chest, was still
turned to the east as though challenging the sun that
was smiting a swift course through the heavens as
if with a flaming sword. The simile rushed through
her mind unbidden. Where would she be—­what
would have happened to her—­by the time
that sword was sheathed?

She conquered her repulsion and approached the man.
As she did so, Peter glided silently up like a faithful
watch-dog and took his place at her right hand.
It was typical of the position he was to occupy in
the days that were coming.

Within a pace or two of the huddled figure, Stella
stopped. He had not moved. It was evident
that he was so rapt in meditation that her presence
at that moment was no more to him than that of an insect
crawling across his path. His eyes, red-rimmed,
startlingly bright, still challenged the coming day.
His whole expression was so grimly aloof, so sternly
unsympathetic, that she hesitated to disturb him.

Humbly Peter came to her assistance. “May
I be allowed to speak to him, mem-sahib?”
he asked.

A quiver went through the crouching form. He
seemed to awake, his mind returning as it were from
a far distance. He turned his head, and Stella
saw that he was not blind. For his eyes took her
in, for the moment appraised her. Then with ungainly,
tortoiselike movements, he arose.

“I am her excellency’s servant,”
he said, in hollow, quavering accents. “I
live or die at her most gracious command.”

It was abjectly spoken, yet she shuddered at the sound
of his voice. Her whole being revolted against
holding any converse with the man. But she forced
herself to persist. Only this monstrous, half-bestial
creature could give her any detail of the awful thing
that had happened in the night. If Ralph were
indeed dead, this man was the last who had seen him
in life.

With a strong effort she subdued her repugnance and
addressed him. “I want,” she said,
“to be guided to the place from which you say
he fell. I must see for myself.”

He bent himself almost to the earth before her.
“Let the gracious lady follow her servant!”
he said, and forthwith straightened himself and hobbled
away.

Page 43

She followed him in utter silence, Peter walking at
her right hand. Up the steep goat-path which
Dacre had so arrogantly ascended in the wake of his
halting guide they made their slow progress in dumb
procession. Stella moved as one rapt in some
terrible dream. Again that drugged feeling was
upon her, that sense of being bound by a spell, and
now she knew that the spell was evil. Once or
twice her brain stirred a little when Peter offered
his silent help, and she thanked him and accepted it
while scarcely realizing what she did. But for
the most part she remained in that state of awful
quiescence, the inertia of one about whom the toils
of a pitiless Fate were closely woven. There was
no escape for her. She knew that there could
be no escape. She had been caught trespassing
in a forbidden paradise, and she was about to be thrust
forth without mercy.

High up on a shelf of naked rock their guide stood
and waited—­a ragged, incongruous figure
against the purity of the new day. The early sun
had barely topped the highest mountains, but a great
gap between two mighty peaks revealed it. As
Stella pressed forward, she came suddenly into the
splendour of the morning.

It affected her strangely. She felt as Moses
must have felt when the Glory of God was revealed
to him. The brightness was intolerable. It
seemed to pierce her through and through. She
was not able to look upon it.

“Excellency,” the stranger said, “it
was here.”

She moved forward and stood beside him. Quiveringly,
in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, she spoke.
“You were with him. You brought him here.”

He made a gesture as of one who repudiates responsibility.
“I, excellency, I am the servant of the Holy
Ones,” he said. “I had a message
for him. I knew that the Holy Ones were angry.
It was written that the white sahib should
not tread the sacred ground. I warned him, excellency,
and then I left him. And now the Holy Ones have
worked their will upon him, and lo, he is gone.”

Stella gazed at the man with fascinated eyes.
The confidence with which he spoke somehow left no
room for question.

“He is mad,” she murmured, half to herself
and half to Peter. “Of course he is mad.”

And then, as if a hand had touched her also, she moved
forward to the edge of the precipice and looked down.

The rush of the torrent rose up like the tumult of
many voices calling to her, calling to her. The
depth beneath her feet widened to an abyss that yawned
to engulf her. With a sick sense of horror she
realized that ghastly, headlong fall—­from
warm, throbbing life on the enchanted height to instant
and terrible destruction upon the green, slimy boulders
over which the water dashed and roared continuously
far below. Here he had sat, that arrogant lover
of hers, and slipped from somnolent enjoyment into
that dreadful gulf. At her feet—­proof
indisputable of the truth of the story she had been
told—­lay a charred fragment of the cigar
that had doubtless been between his lips when he had
sunk into that fatal sleep. The memory of Peter’s
words flashed through her brain. He had smoked
opium. She wondered if Peter really knew.
But of what avail now to conjecture? He was gone,
and only this mad native vagabond had witnessed his
going.

Page 44

And at that, another thought pierced her keen as a
dagger, rending its way through living tissues.
The manner of the man’s appearing, the horror
with which he had inspired her, the mystery of him,
all combined to drive it home to her heart. What
if a hand had indeed touched him? What if a treacherous
blow had hurled him over that terrible edge?

She turned to look again upon the stranger, but he
had withdrawn himself. She saw only the Indian
servant, standing close beside her, his dark eyes
following her every action with wistful vigilance.

Meeting her desperate gaze, he pressed a little nearer,
like a faithful dog, protective and devoted.
“Come away, my mem-sahib!” he entreated
very earnestly. “It is the Gate of Death.”

That pierced her anew. Her desolation came upon
her in an overwhelming wave. She turned with
a great cry, and threw her arms wide to the risen
sun, tottering blindly towards the emptiness that stretched
beneath her feet. And as she went, she heard
the roar of the torrent dashing down over its grim
boulders to the great river up which they two had glided
in their dream of enchantment aeons and aeons before....

She knew nothing of the sinewy arms that held her
back from death though she fought them fiercely, desperately.
She did not hear the piteous entreaties of poor harassed
Peter as he forced her back, back, back, from those
awful depths. She only knew a great turmoil that
seemed to her unending—­a fearful striving
against ever-increasing odds—­and at the
last a swirling, unfathomable darkness descending like
a wind-blown blanket upon her—­enveloping
her, annihilating her....

And British eyes, keen and grey and stern, looked
on from afar, watching silently, as the Indian bore
his senseless mem-sahib away.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE MINISTERING ANGEL

“And what am I going to do?” demanded
Mrs. Ermsted fretfully. She was lounging in the
easiest chair in Mrs. Ralston’s drawing-room
with a cigarette between her fingers. A very
decided frown was drawing her delicate brows.
“I had no idea you could be so fickle,”
she said.

“My dear, I shall welcome you here just as heartily
as I ever have,” Mrs. Ralston assured her, without
lifting her eyes from the muslin frock at which she
was busily stitching.

Mrs. Ermsted pouted. “That may be.
But I shan’t come very often when she is here.
I don’t like widows. They are either so
melancholy that they give you the hump or so self-important
that you want to slap them. I never did fancy
this girl, as you know. Much too haughty and superior.”

“You never knew her, dear,” said Mrs.
Ralston.

Mrs. Ermsted’s laugh had a touch of venom.
“As I have tried more than once to make you
realize,” she said, “there are at least
two points of view to everybody. You, dear Mrs.
Ralston, always wear rose-coloured spectacles, with
the unfortunate result that your opinion is so unvaryingly
favourable that nobody values it.”

Page 45

Mrs. Ralston’s faded face flushed faintly.
She worked on in silence.

For a space Netta Ermsted smoked her cigarette with
her eyes fixed upon space; then very suddenly she
spoke again. “I wonder if Ralph Dacre committed
suicide.”

Mrs. Ralston started at the abrupt surmise. She
looked up for the first time. “Really,
my dear! What an extraordinary thing to say!”

Little Mrs. Ermsted jerked up her chin aggressively.
“Why extraordinary, I wonder? Nothing could
be more extraordinary than his death. Either he
jumped over the precipice or she pushed him over when
he wasn’t looking. I wonder which.”

But at that Mrs. Ralston gravely arose and rebuked
her. She never suffered any nervous qualms when
dealing with this volatile friend of hers. “It
is more than foolish,” she said with decision;
“it is wicked, to talk like that. I will
not sit and listen to you. You have a very mischievous
brain, Netta. You ought to keep it under better
control.”

Mrs. Ermsted stretched out her dainty feet in front
of her and made a grimace. “When you call
me Netta, I always know it is getting serious,”
she remarked. “I withdraw it all, my dear
angel, with the utmost liberality. You shall
see how generous I can be to my supplanter. But
do like a good soul finish those tiresome tucks before
you begin to be really cross with me! Poor little
Tessa really needs that frock, and ayah is
such a shocking worker. I shan’t be able
to turn to you for anything when the estimable Mrs.
Dacre is here. In fact I shall be driven to Mrs.
Burton for companionship and counsel, and shall become
more catty than ever.”

“My dear, please”—­Mrs. Ralston
spoke very earnestly—­“do not imagine
for an instant that having that poor girl to care for
will make the smallest difference to my friendship
for you! I hope to see as much of you and little
Tessa as I have ever seen. I feel that Stella
would be fond of children. Your little one would
be a comfort to any sore heart.”

“She can be a positive little devil,”
observed Tessa’s mother dispassionately.
“But it’s better than being a saint, isn’t
it? Look at that hateful child, Cedric Burton—­detestable
little ape! That Burton complacency gets on my
nerves, especially in a child. But then look at
the Burtons! How could they help having horrible
little self-opinionated apes for children?”

“My dear, your tongue—­your tongue!”
protested Mrs. Ralston.

Mrs. Ermsted shot it out and in again with an impudent
smile. “Well, what’s the matter with
it? It’s quite a candid one—­like
your own. A little more pointed perhaps and something
venomous upon occasion. But it has its good qualities
also. At least it is never insincere.”

“Of that I am sure.” Mrs. Ralston
spoke with ready kindliness. “But, oh,
my dear, if it were only a little more charitable!”

Page 46

Netta Ermsted smiled at her like a wayward child.
“I like saying nasty things about people,”
she said. “It amuses me. Besides, they’re
nearly always true. Do tell me what you think
of that latest hat erection of Lady Harriet’s!
I never saw her look more aristocratically hideous
in my life than she looked at the Rajah’s garden-party
yesterday. I felt quite sorry for the Rajah,
for he’s a nice boy notwithstanding his forty
wives, and he likes pretty things.” She
gave a little laugh, and stretched her white arms
up, clasping her hands behind her head. “I
have promised to ride with him in the early mornings
now and then. Won’t darling Dick be jealous
when he knows?”

Mrs. Ralston uttered a sigh. There were times
when all her attempts to reform this giddy little
butterfly seemed unavailing. Nevertheless, being
sound of principle and unfailingly conscientious, she
made a gallant effort. “Do you think you
ought to do that, dear? I always think that we
ought to live more circumspectly here at Bhulwana than
down at Kurrumpore. And—­if I may be
allowed to say so—­your husband is such a
good, kind man, so indulgent, it seems unfair to take
advantage of it.”

“Oh, is he?” laughed Netta. “How
ill you know my doughty Richard! Why, it’s
half the fun in life to make him mad. He nearly
turned me over his knee and spanked me the last time.”

“My dear, I wish he had!” said Mrs. Ralston,
with downright fervour. “It would do you
good.”

“Think so?” Netta flicked the ash from
her cigarette with a disdainful gesture. “It
all depends. I should either worship him or loath
him afterwards. I wonder which. Poor old
Richard! It’s silly of him to stay in love
with the same person always, isn’t it? I
couldn’t be so monotonous if I tried.”

“In fact if he cared less about you, you would
think more of him,” remarked Mrs. Ralston, with
a quite unusual touch of severity.

Netta Ermsted laughed again, her light, heartless
laugh. “How crushingly absolute! But
it is the literal truth. I certainly should.
He’s cheap now, poor old boy. That’s
why I lead him such a dog’s life. A man
should never be cheap to his wife. Now look at
your husband! Indifference personified!
And you have never given him an hour’s anxiety
in his life.”

Mrs. Ralston’s pale blue eyes suddenly shone.
She looked almost young again. “We understand
each other,” she said simply.

A mocking smile played about Mrs. Ermsted’s
lips, but she said nothing for the moment. In
her own fashion she was fond of the surgeon’s
wife, and she would not openly deride her, dear good
soul.

“When you’ve quite finished that,”
she remarked presently, “there’s a tussore
frock of my own I want to consult you about. There’s
one thing about Stella; she won’t be wanting
many clothes, so I shall be able to retain your undivided
attention in that respect. I really don’t
know what Tessa and I would do without you. The
tiresome little thing is always tearing her clothes
to pieces.”

Page 47

Mrs. Ralston smiled, a soft mother-smile. “You’re
a lucky, lucky girl,” she said, “though
you don’t realize it, and probably never will.
When are you going to bring the little monkey to see
me again?”

“She will probably come herself when the mood
takes her,” carelessly Mrs. Ermsted made reply.
“I assure you, you stand very high on her visiting
list. But I hardly ever take her anywhere.
She is always so naughty with me.” She
chose another cigarette with the words. “She
is sure to be a pretty frequent visitor while Tommy
Denvers is here. She worships him.”

“He is a nice boy,” observed Mrs. Ralston.
“I wish he could have got longer leave.
It would have comforted Stella to have him.”

“I suppose she can go down to him at Kurrumpore
if she doesn’t mind sacrificing that rose-leaf
complexion,” rejoined Mrs. Ermsted, shutting
her matchbox with a spiteful click. “You
stayed down last hot weather.”

“Gerald was not well and couldn’t leave
his post,” said Mrs. Ralston. “That
was different. I felt he needed me.”

“And so you nearly killed yourself to satisfy
the need,” commented Mrs. Ermsted. “I
sometimes think you are rather a fine woman, notwithstanding
appearances.” She glanced at the watch on
her wrist. “By Jove, how late it is!
Your latest protegee will be here immediately.
You must have been aching to tell me to go for the
last half-hour. You silly saint! Why didn’t
you?”

“I have no wish for you to go, dear,”
responded Mrs. Ralston tranquilly. “All
my visitors are an honour to my house.”

Mrs. Ermsted sprang to her feet with a swift, elastic
movement. “Mary, I love you!” she
said. “You are a ministering angel, faithful
friend, and priceless counsellor, all combined.
I laugh at you for a frump behind your back, but when
I am with you, I am spellbound with admiration.
You are really superb.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Ralston.

She returned the impulsive kiss bestowed upon her
with a funny look in her blue eyes that might almost
have been compassionate if it had not been so unmistakably
humorous. She did not attempt to make the embrace
a lingering one, however, and Netta Ermsted took her
impetuous departure with a piqued sense of uncertainty.

“I wonder if she really has got any brains after
all,” she said aloud, as she sped away in her
“rickshaw.” “She is a quaint
creature anyhow. I rather wonder that I bother
myself with her.”

At which juncture she met the Rajah, resplendent in
green puggarree and riding his favourite bay
Arab, and forthwith dismissed Mrs. Ralston and all
discreet counsels to the limbo of forgotten things.
She had dubbed the Rajah her Arabian Knight.
His name for her was of too intimate an order to be
pronounced in public. She was the Lemon-scented
Lily of his dreams.

CHAPTER II

THE RETURN

Page 48

Stella’s first impression of Bhulwana was the
extremely European atmosphere that pervaded it.
Bungalows and pine-woods seemed to be its main characteristics,
and there was about it none of the languorous Eastern
charm that had so haunted the forbidden paradise.
Bhulwana was a cheerful place, and though perched
fairly high among the hills of Markestan it was possible
to get very hot there. For this reason perhaps
all the energies of its visitors were directed towards
the organizing of gaieties, and in the height of the
summer it was very gay indeed.

The Rajah’s summer palace, white and magnificent,
occupied the brow of the hill, and the bungalows that
clustered among the pines below it looked as if there
had been some competition among them as to which could
get the nearest.

The Ralstons’ bungalow was considerably lower
down the hill. It stood upon more open ground
than most, and overlooked the race-course some distance
below. It was an ugly little place, and the small
compound surrounding it was a veritable wilderness.
It had been named “The Grand Stand” owing
to its position, but no one less racy than its present
occupant could well have been found. Mrs. Ralston’s
wistful blue eyes seldom rested upon the race-course.
They looked beyond to the mist-veiled plains.

The room she had prepared for Stella’s reception
looked in an easterly direction towards the winding,
wooded road that led up to the Rajah’s residence.
Great care had been expended upon it. Her heart
had yearned to the girl ever since she had heard of
her sudden bereavement, and her delight at the thought
of receiving her was only second to her sorrow upon
Stella’s account.

Higher up the hill stood the dainty bungalow which
Ralph Dacre had taken for his bride. The thought
of it tore Mrs. Ralston’s tender heart.
She had written an urgent epistle to Tommy imploring
him not to let his sister go there in her desolation.
And, swayed by Tommy’s influence, and, it might
be, touched by Mrs. Ralston’s own earnest solicitude,
Stella, not caring greatly whither she went, had agreed
to take up her abode for a time at least with the
surgeon’s wife. There was no necessity
to make any sudden decision. The whole of her
life lay before her, a dreary waste of desert.
It did not seem to matter at that stage where she
spent those first forlorn months. She was tired
to the soul of her, and only wanted to rest.

She hoped vaguely that Mrs. Ralston would have the
tact to respect this wish of hers. Her impression
of this the only woman who had shown her any kindness
since her arrival in India was not of a very definite
order. Mrs. Ralston with her faded prettiness
and gentle, retiring ways did not possess a very arresting
personality. No one seeing her two or three times
could have given any very accurate description of her.
Lady Harriet had more than once described her as a
negligible quantity. But Lady Harriet systematically
neglected everyone who had no pretensions to smartness.
She detested all dowdy women.

Page 49

But Stella still remembered with gratitude the warmth
of affectionate admiration and sympathy that had melted
her coldness on her wedding-day, and something within
her, notwithstanding her utter weariness, longed to
feel that warmth again. Though she scarcely realized
it, she wanted the clasp of motherly arms, shielding
her from the tempest of life.

Tommy, who had met her at Rawal Pindi on the dreadful
return journey, had watched over her and cared for
her comfort with the utmost tenderness; but Tommy,
like Peter, was somehow outside her confidence.
He was just a blundering male with the best intentions.
She could not have opened her heart to him had she
tried. She was unspeakably glad to have him with
her, and later on she hoped to join him again at The
Green Bungalow down at Kurrumpore where they had dwelt
together during the weeks preceding her marriage.
For Tommy was the only relative she had in the world
who cared for her. And she was very fond of Tommy,
but she was not really intimate with him. They
were just good comrades.

As a married woman, she no longer feared the veiled
shafts of malice that had pierced her before.
Her position was assured. Not that she would
have cared greatly in any case. Such trivial things
belonged to the past, and she marvelled now at the
thought that they had ever seriously affected her.
She was changed, greatly changed. In one short
month she had left her girlhood behind her. Her
proud shyness had utterly departed. She had returned
a grave, reserved woman, indifferent, almost apathetic,
wholly self-contained. Her natural stateliness
still clung about her, but she did not cloak herself
therewith. She walked rather as one rapt in reverie,
looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Mrs. Ralston nearly wept when she saw her, so shocked
was she by the havoc that strange month had wrought.
All the soft glow of youth had utterly passed away.
White and cold as alabaster, a woman empty and alone,
she returned from the forbidden paradise, and it seemed
to Mrs. Ralston at first that the very heart of her
had been shattered like a beautiful flower by the
closing of the gates.

But later, when Stella had been with her for a few
hours, she realized that life still throbbed deep
down below the surface, though, perhaps in self-defence,
it was buried deep, very far from the reach of all
casual investigation. She could not speak of her
tragedy, but she responded to the mute sympathy Mrs.
Ralston poured out to her with a gratitude that was
wholly unfeigned, and the latter understood clearly
that she would not refuse her admittance though she
barred out all the world beside.

She was deeply touched by the discovery, reflecting
in her humility that Stella’s need must indeed
have been great to have drawn her to herself for comfort.
It was true that nearly all her friends had been made
in trouble which she had sought to alleviate, but
Mary Ralston was too lowly to ascribe to herself any
virtue on that account. She only thanked God
for her opportunities.

Page 50

On the night of their arrival, when Stella had gone
to her room, Tommy spoke very seriously of his sister’s
state and begged Mrs. Ralston to do her utmost to
combat the apathy which he had found himself wholly
unable to pierce.

“I haven’t seen her shed a single tear,”
he said. “People who didn’t know
would think her heartless. I can’t bear
to see that deadly coldness. It isn’t Stella.”

“We must be patient,” Mrs. Ralston said.

There were tears in the boy’s own eyes for which
she liked him, but she did not encourage him to further
confidence. It was not her way to discuss any
friend with a third person, however intimate.

Tommy left the subject without realizing that she
had turned him from it.

“I don’t know in the least how she is
left,” he said restlessly. “Haven’t
an idea what sort of state Dacre’s affairs were
in. I ought to have asked him, but I never had
the chance; and everything was done in such a mighty
hurry. I don’t suppose he had much to leave
if anything. It was a fool marriage,” he
ended bitterly. “I always hated it.
Monck knew that.”

“Doesn’t Captain Monck know anything?”
asked Mrs. Ralston.

“Oh, goodness knows. Monck’s away
on urgent business, been away for ever so long now.
I haven’t seen him since Dacre’s death.
I daresay he doesn’t even know of that yet.
He had to go Home. I suppose he is on his way
back again now; I hope so anyway. It’s pretty
beastly without him.”

“Poor Tommy!” Mrs. Ralston’s sympathy
was uppermost again. “It’s been a
tragic business altogether. But let us be thankful
we have dear Stella safely back! I am going to
say good night to her now. Help yourself to anything
you want!”

She went, and Tommy stretched himself out on a long
chair with a sigh of discontent over things in general.
He had had no word from Monck throughout his absence,
and this was almost the greatest grievance of all.

Treading softly the passage that led to Stella’s
door, Mrs. Ralston nearly stumbled over a crouching,
white-clad figure that rose up swiftly and noiselessly
on the instant and resolved itself into the salaaming
person of Peter the Sikh. He had slept across
Stella’s threshold ever since her bereavement.

“My mem-sahib is still awake,”
he told her with a touch of wistfulness. “She
sleeps only when the night is nearly spent.”

Softly she opened the door. “It is I, my
dear. Are you in bed? May I come and bid
you good night?”

“Of course,” Stella made instant reply.
“How good you are! How kind!”

Page 51

A shaded night-lamp was burning by her side.
Her face upon the pillow was in deep shadow.
Her hair spread all around her, wrapping her as it
were in mystery.

As Mrs. Ralston drew near, she stretched out a welcoming
hand. “I hope my watch-dog didn’t
startle you,” she said. “The dear
fellow is so upset that I don’t want an ayah,
he is doing his best to turn himself into one.
I couldn’t bear to send him away. You don’t
mind?”

“My dear, I mind nothing.” Mrs. Ralston
stooped in her warm way and kissed the pale, still
face. “Are you comfortable? Have you
everything you want?”

“Everything, thank you,” Stella answered,
drawing her hostess gently down to sit on the side
of the bed. “I feel rested already.
Somehow your presence is restful.”

“Oh, my dear!” Mrs. Ralston flushed with
pleasure. Not many were the compliments that
came her way. “And you feel as if you will
be able to sleep?”

Stella’s eyes looked unutterably weary; yet
she shook her head. “No. I never sleep
much before morning. I think I slept too much
when I was in Kashmir. The days and nights all
seemed part of one long dream.” A slight
shudder assailed her; she repressed it with a shadowy
smile. “Life here will be very different,”
she said. “Perhaps I shall be able to wake
up now. I am not in the least a dreamy person
as a rule.”

“I wanted to go back to Kurrumpore with Tommy,”
Stella went on, “but he won’t hear of
it, though he tells me that you stayed there through
last summer. If you could stand it, so could
I. I feel sure that physically I am much stronger.”

“Oh no, dear, no. You couldn’t do
it.” Mrs. Ralston looked down upon the
beautiful face very tenderly. “I am tough,
you know, dried up and wiry. And I had a very
strong motive. But you are different. You
would never stand a hot season at Kurrumpore.
I can’t tell you what it is like there.
At its worst it is unspeakable. I am very glad
that Tommy realizes the impossibility of it.
No, no! Stay here with me till I go down!
I am always the first. And it will give me so
much pleasure to take care of you.”

Stella relinquished the discussion with a short sigh.
“It doesn’t seem to matter much what I
do,” she said. “Tommy certainly doesn’t
need me. No one does. And I expect you will
soon get very tired of me.”

“Never, dear, never.” Mrs. Ralston’s
hand clasped hers reassuringly. “Never
think that for a moment! From the very first day
I saw you I have wanted to have you to love and care
for.”

A gleam of surprise crossed Stella’s face.
“How very kind of you!” she said.

“Oh no, dear. It was your own doing.
You are so beautiful,” murmured the surgeon’s
wife. “And I knew that you were the same
all through—­beautiful to the very soul.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” Sharply Stella
broke in upon her. “Don’t think it!
You don’t know me in the least. You—­you
have far more beauty of soul than I have, or can ever
hope to have now.”

Page 52

Mrs. Ralston shook her head.

“But it is so,” Stella insisted.
“I—­What am I?” A tremor of passion
crept unawares into her low voice. “I am
a woman who has been denied everything. I have
been cast out like Eve, but without Eve’s compensations.
If I had been given a child to love, I might have had
hope. But now I have none—­I have none.
I am hard and bitter,—­old before my time,
and I shall never now be anything else.”

“Oh, darling, no!” Very swiftly Mrs. Ralston
checked her. “Indeed you are wrong.
We can make of our lives what we will. Believe
me, the barren woman can be a joyful mother of children
if she will. There is always someone to love.”

Stella’s lips were quivering. She turned
her face aside. “Life is very difficult,”
she said.

“It gets simpler as one goes on, dear,”
Mrs. Ralston assured her gently. “Not easy,
oh no, not easy. We were never meant to make an
easy-chair of circumstance however favourable.
But if we only press on, it does get simpler, and
the way opens out before us as we go. I have learnt
that at least from life.” She paused a
moment, then bent suddenly down and spoke into Stella’s
ear. “May I tell you something about myself—­something
I have never before breathed to any one—­except
to God?”

Mrs. Ralston hesitated a second as one who pauses
before making a supreme effort. Then under her
breath she spoke again. “Perhaps it will
not interest you much. I don’t know.
It is only this. Like you, I wanted—­I
hoped for—­a child. And—­I
married without loving—­just for that.
Stella, my sin was punished. The baby came—­and
went—­and there can never be another.
I thought my heart was broken at the time. Oh,
it was bitter—­bitter. Even now—­sometimes—­”
She stopped herself. “But no, I needn’t
trouble you with that. I only want to tell you
that very beautiful flowers bloom sometimes out of
ashes. And it has been so with me. My rose
of love was slow in growing, but it blossoms now, and
I am training it over all the blank spaces. And
it grew out of a barren soil, dear, out of a barren
soil.”

Stella’s arms were close about her as she finished.
“Oh, thank you,” she whispered tremulously,
“thank you for telling me that.”

But though she was deeply stirred, no further confidence
could she bring herself to utter. She had found
a friend—­a close, staunch friend who would
never fail her; but not even to her could she show
the blackness of the gulf into which she had been
hurled. Even now there were times when she seemed
to be still falling, falling, and always, waking or
sleeping, the nightmare horror of it clung cold about
her soul.

CHAPTER III

THE BARREN SOIL

Page 53

No one could look askance at poor Ralph Dacre’s
young widow. Lady Harriet Mansfield graciously
hinted as much when she paid her state call within
a week of her arrival. Also, she desired to ascertain
Stella’s plans for the future, and when she
heard that she intended to return to Kurrumpore with
Mrs. Ralston she received the news with a species of
condescending approval that seemed to indicate that
Stella’s days of probation were past. With
the exercise of great care and circumspection she
might even ultimately be admitted to the fortunate
circle which sunned itself in the light of Lady Harriet’s
patronage.

Tommy elevated his nose irreverently when the august
presence was withdrawn and hoped that Stella would
not have her head turned by the royal favour.
He prophesied that Mrs. Burton would be the next to
come simpering round, and in this he was not mistaken;
but Stella did not receive this visitor, for on the
following day she was in bed with an attack of fever
that prostrated her during the rest of his leave.

It was not a dangerous illness, and Mrs. Ralston nursed
her through it with a devotion that went far towards
cementing the friendship already begun between them.
Tommy, though regretful, consoled himself by the ready
means of the station’s gaieties, played tennis
with zest, inaugurated a gymkhana, and danced practically
every night into the early morning. He was a
delightful companion for little Tessa Ermsted who
followed him everywhere and was never snubbed, an inquiring
mind notwithstanding. Truly a nice boy was Tommy,
as everyone agreed, and the regret was general when
his leave began to draw to a close.

On the afternoon of his last day he made his appearance
on the verandah of The Grand Stand for tea, with his
faithful attendant at his heels, to find his sister
reclining there for the first time on a charpoy
well lined with cushions, while Mrs. Ralston presided
at the tea-table beside her.

She looked the ghost of her former self, and for a
moment though he had visited her in bed only that
morning, Tommy was rudely startled.

“Great Jupiter!” he ejaculated. “How
ill you look!”

She smiled at his exclamation, while his small, sharp-faced
companion pricked up attentive ears. “Do
people look like that when they’re going to
die?” she asked.

“Not in the least, dear,” said Mrs. Ralston
tranquilly. “Come and speak to Mrs. Dacre
and tell us what you have been doing!”

But Tessa would only stand on one leg and stare, till
Stella put forth a friendly hand and beckoned her
to a corner of her charpoy.

She went then, still staring with wide round eyes
of intensest blue that gazed out of a somewhat pinched
little face of monkey-like intelligence.

“What have you and Tommy been doing?”
Stella asked.

“Oh, just hobnobbing,” said Tessa.
“Same as Mother and the Rajah.”

“Have some cake!” said Tommy. “And
tell us all about the mongoose!”

Page 54

“Oh, Scooter! He’s such a darling!
Shall I bring him to see you?” asked Tessa,
lifting those wonderful unchildlike eyes of hers to
Stella’s. “You’d love him!
I know you would. He talks—­almost.
Captain Monck gave him to me. I never liked him
before, but I do now. I wish he’d come
back, and so does Tommy. Don’t you think
he’s a nice man?”

“I don’t know him very well,” said
Stella.

“Oh, don’t you? That’s because
he’s so quiet. I used to think he was surly.
But he isn’t really. He’s only shy.
Is he, Aunt Mary?” The blue eyes whisked round
to Mrs. Ralston and were met by a slightly reproving
shake of the head. “No, but really,”
Tessa protested, “he is a nice man. Tommy
says so. Mother doesn’t like him, but that’s
nothing to go by. The people she likes are hardly
ever nice. Daddy says so.”

“Tessa,” said Mrs. Ralston gently, “we
don’t want to hear about that. Tell us
some more about Captain Monck’s mongoose instead!”

Tessa frowned momentarily. Such nursery discipline
was something of an insult to her eight years’
dignity, but in a second she sent a dazzling smile
to her hostess, accepting the rebuff. “All
right, Aunt Mary, I’ll bring him to see you
to-morrow, shall I?” she said brightly.
“Mrs. Dacre will like that too. It’ll
be something to amuse us when Tommy’s gone.”

Tommy looked across with a grin. “Yes,
keep your spirits up!” he said. “It’s
dull work with the boys away, isn’t it, Aunt
Mary? And Scooter is a most sagacious animal—­almost
as intelligent as Peter the Great who coils himself
on Stella’s threshold every night as if he thought
the bogeyman was coming to spirit her away. He’s
developing into a habit, isn’t he Stella?
You’d better be careful.”

Stella smiled her faint, tired smile. “I
like to have him there,” she said. “I
am not nervous, of course, but he is a friend.”

“You’ll never shake him off,” predicted
Tommy. “He comes of a romantic stock.
Hullo! Here is his high mightiness with the mail!
Look at the sparkle in Aunt Mary’s eyes!
Did you ever see the like? She expects to draw
a prize evidently.”

He stretched a leisurely arm and took the letter from
the salver that the Indian extended. It was for
Mrs. Ralston, and she received it blushing like an
eager girl.

“Why does Aunt Mary look like that?” piped
Tessa, ever observant. “It’s only
from the Major. Mother never looks like that when
Daddy writes to her.”

“Perhaps Daddy’s letters are not so interesting,”
suggested Tommy.

Tessa chuckled. “Shall I tell you what?
She’d ever so much rather have a letter from
the Rajah. I know she would. She keeps his
locked up, but she never bothers about Daddy’s.
I can’t think what the Rajah finds to write
about when they are always meeting. I think it’s
silly, don’t you?”

Page 55

Stella smiled at her. “Oh do! Perhaps
there will be some interesting news of Kurrumpore
in it.”

“News of Monck perhaps,” suggested Tommy.
“There’s a fellow who never writes a letter.
I haven’t the faintest idea where he is or what
he is doing, except that he went to his brother somewhere
in England. He is due back in about a fortnight,
but I probably shan’t hear a word of him until
he’s there.”

“You have not written to him either?”
questioned Stella.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know
where to write.” Tommy’s eyes met
hers with slight hesitation. “I haven’t
been able to tell him anything of our affairs.
It’s quite possible though that he will have
heard before he gets back to The Green Bungalow.
He generally gets hold of things.”

“It need not make any difference.”
Stella spoke slowly, her eyes fixed upon the green
race-course that gleamed in the sun below them.
“So far as I am concerned, he is quite welcome
to remain at The Green Bungalow. I daresay we
should not get in each other’s way. That
is,” she looked at her brother, “if you
prefer that arrangement.”

“Quite sure.” Stella spoke rather
wearily. “It really doesn’t matter
to me—­except that I don’t want to
come between you and your friend. Now that I
have been married—­” a tinge of bitterness
sounded in her voice—­“I suppose no
one will take exception. But of course Captain
Monck may see the matter in a different light.
If so, pray let him do as he thinks fit!”

“You bet he will!” said Tommy. “He’s
about the most determined cuss that ever lived.”

“He’s a very nice man,” put in Tessa
jealously.

Tommy laughed. “He’s one of the best,”
he agreed heartily. “And he’s the
sort that always comes out on top sooner or later.
Just you remember that, Tessa! He’s a winner,
and he’s straight—­straight as a die.”
“Which is all that matters,” said Mrs.
Ralston, without lifting her eyes from her letter.

“Hear, hear!” said Tommy. “Why
do you look like that, Stella? Mean to say he
isn’t straight?”

“Wondering what?” Tommy’s voice
had a hint of sharpness; he looked momentarily aggressive.

“Just wondering how much you knew of him, that’s
all,” she made answer.

“I know as much as any one,” asserted
Tommy quickly. “He’s a man to be
honoured. I’d stake my life on that.
He is incapable of anything mean or underhand.”

Page 56

Stella was silent. The boy’s faith was
genuine, she knew, but, remembering what Ralph Dacre
had told her on their last night together, she could
not stifle the wonder as to whether Tommy had ever
grasped the actual quality of his friend’s character.
It seemed to her that Tommy’s worship was of
too humble a species to afford him a very comprehensive
view of the object thereof. She was sure that
unlike herself—­he would never presume to
criticize, would never so much as question any action
of Monck’s. Her own conception of the man,
she was aware, had altered somewhat since that night.
She regarded him now with a wholly dispassionate interest.
She had attracted him, but she much doubted if the
attraction had survived her marriage. For herself,
that chapter in her life was closed and could never,
she now believed, be reopened. Monck had gone
his way, she hers, and they had drifted apart.
Only by the accident of circumstance would they meet
again, and she was determined that when this meeting
took place their relations should be of so impersonal
a character that he should find it well-nigh impossible
to recall the fact that any hint of romance had ever
hovered even for a fleeting moment between them.
He had his career before him. He followed the
way of ambition, and he should continue to follow it,
unhindered by any thought of her. She was dependent
upon no man. She would pick up the threads of
her own life and weave of it something that should
be worth while. With the return of health this
resolution was forming within her. Mrs. Ralston’s
influence was making itself felt. She believed
that the way would open out before her as she went.
She had made one great mistake. She would never
make such another. She would be patient.
It might be in time that to her, even as to her friend,
a blossoming might come out of the barren soil in
which her life was cast.

CHAPTER IV

THE SUMMONS

During those months spent at Bhulwana with the surgeon’s
wife a measure of peace did gradually return to Stella.
She took no part in the gaieties of the station, but
her widow’s mourning made it easy for her to
hold aloof. Undoubtedly she earned Lady Harriet’s
approval by so doing, but Mrs. Ermsted continued to
look at her askance, notwithstanding the fact that
her small daughter had developed a warm liking for
the sister of her beloved Tommy.

“Wait till she gets back to Kurrumpore,”
said Mrs. Ermsted. “We shall see her in
her true colours then.”

She did not say this to Mrs. Ralston. She visited
The Grand Stand less and less frequently. She
was always full of engagements and seldom had a moment
to spare for the society of this steady friend of hers.
And Mrs. Ralston never sought her out. It was
not her way. She was ready for all, but she intruded
upon none.

Mrs. Ralston’s affection for Stella had become
very deep. There was between them a sympathy
that was beyond words. They understood each other.

Page 57

As the wet season drew on, their companionship became
more and more intimate though their spoken confidences
were few. Mrs. Ralston never asked for confidences
though she probably received more than any other woman
in the station.

It was on a day in September of drifting clouds and
unbroken rain that Stella spoke at length of a resolution
that had been gradually forming in her mind.
She found no difficulty in speaking; in fact it seemed
the natural thing to do. And she felt even as
she gave utterance to the words that Mrs. Ralston
already knew their import.

“Mary,” she said, “after Christmas
I am going back to England.”

Mrs. Ralston betrayed no surprise. She was in
the midst of an elaborate darn in the heel of a silk
sock. She looked across at Stella gravely.

“And when you get there, my dear?” she
said.

“I shall find some work to do.” Stella
spoke with the decision of one who gives utterance
to the result of careful thought. “I think
I shall go in for hospital training. It is hard
work, I know; but I am strong. I think hard work
is what I need.”

Mrs. Ralston was silent.

Stella went on. “I see now that I made
a mistake in ever coming out here. It wasn’t
as if Tommy really wanted me. He doesn’t,
you know. His friend Captain Monck is all-sufficing—­and
probably better for him. In any case—­he
doesn’t need me.”

“You may be right, dear,” Mrs. Ralston
said, “though I doubt if Tommy would view it
in the same light. I am glad anyhow that you will
spend Christmas out here. I shall not lose you
so soon.”

Stella smiled a little. “I don’t
want to hurt Tommy’s feelings, and I know they
would be hurt if I went sooner. Besides I would
like to have one cold weather out here.”

“And why not?” said Mrs. Ralston.
She added after a moment, “What will you do
with Peter?”

Stella hesitated. “That is one reason why
I have not come to a decision sooner. I don’t
like leaving poor Peter. It occurred to me possibly
that down at Kurrumpore he might find another master.
Anyway, I shall tell him my plans when I get there,
and he will have the opportunity”—­she
smiled rather sadly—­“to transfer his
devotion to someone else.”

“He won’t take it,” said Mrs. Ralston
with conviction. “The fidelity of these
men is amazing. It puts us to shame.”

“I hate the thought of parting with him,”
Stella said. “But what can I do?”

She broke off short as the subject of their discussion
came softly into the room, salver in hand. He
gave her a telegram and stood back decorously behind
her chair while she opened it.

Mrs. Ralston’s grave eyes watched her, and in
a moment Stella looked up and met them. “From
Kurrumpore,” she said.

Her face was pale, but her hands and voice were steady.

“From Tommy?” questioned Mrs. Ralston.

“No. From Captain Monck. Tommy is
ill—­very ill. Malaria again. He
thinks I had better go to him.”

Page 58

“Oh, my dear!” Mrs. Ralston’s exclamation
held dismay.

Stella met it by holding out to her the message.
“Tommy down with malaria,” it said.
“Condition serious. Come if you are able.
Monck.”

Mrs. Ralston rose. She seemed to be more agitated
than Stella. “I shall go too,” she
said.

“No, dear, no!” Stella stopped her.
“There is no need for that. I shall be
all right. I am perfectly strong now, stronger
than you are. And they say malaria never attacks
newcomers so badly. No. I will go alone.
I won’t be answerable to your husband for you.
Really, dear, really, I am in earnest.”

Her insistence prevailed, albeit Mrs. Ralston yielded
very unwillingly. She was not very strong, and
she knew well that her husband would be greatly averse
to her taking such a step. But the thought of
Stella going alone was even harder to face till her
look suddenly fell upon Peter the Great standing motionless
behind her chair.

“Ah well, you will have Peter,” she said
with relief.

And Stella, who was bending already over her reply
telegram, replied instantly with one of her rare smiles.
“Of course I shall have Peter!”

Peter’s responding smile was good to see.
“I will take care of my mem-sahib,”
he said.

Stella’s reply was absolutely simple. “Starting
at once,” she wrote; and within half an hour
her preparations were complete.

She knew Monck well enough to be certain that he would
not have telegraphed that urgent message had not the
need been great. He had nursed Tommy once before,
and she knew that in Tommy’s estimation at least
he had been the means of saving his life. He was
a man of steady nerve and level judgment. He
would not have sent for her if his faith in his own
powers had not begun to weaken. It meant that
Tommy was very ill, that he might be dying. All
that was great in Stella rose up impulsively at the
call. Tommy had never really wanted her before.

To Mrs. Ralston who at the last stood over her with
a glass of wine she was as a different woman.
There was nothing headlong about her, but the quiet
energy of her made her realize that she had been fashioned
for better things than the social gaieties with which
so many were content. Stella would go to the
deep heart of life.

She yearned to accompany her upon her journey to the
plains, but Stella’s solemn promise to send
for her if she were taken ill herself consoled her
in a measure. Very regretfully did she take leave
of her, and when the rattle of the wheels that bore
Stella and the faithful Peter away had died at last
in the distance she turned back into her empty bungalow
with tears in her eyes. Stella had become dear
to her as a sister.

Page 59

It was an all-night journey, and only a part of it
could be accomplished by train, the line ending at
Khanmulla which was reached in the early hours of
the morning. But for Peter’s ministrations
Stella would probably have fared ill, but he was an
experienced traveller and surrounded her with every
comfort that he could devise. The night was close
and dank. They travelled through pitch darkness.
Stella lay back and tried to sleep; but sleep would
not come to her. She was tired, but repose eluded
her. The beating of the unceasing rain upon the
tin roof, and the perpetual rattle of the train made
an endless tattoo in her brain from which there was
no escape. She was haunted by the memory of the
last journey that she had made along that line when
leaving Kurrumpore in the spring, of Ralph and the
ever-growing passion in his eyes, of the first wild
revolt within her which she had so barely quelled.
How far away seemed those days of an almost unbelievable
torture! She could regard them now dispassionately,
albeit with wonder. She marvelled now that she
had ever given herself to such a man. By the
light of experience she realized how tragic had been
her blunder, and now that the awful sense of shock
and desolation had passed she could be thankful that
no heavier penalty had been exacted. The man had
been taken swiftly, mercifully, as she believed.
He had been spared much, and she—­she had
been delivered from a fate far worse. For she
could never have come to love him. She was certain
of that. Lifelong misery would have been her
portion, school herself to submission though she might.
She believed that the awakening from that dream of
lethargy could not have been long deferred for either
of them, and with it would have come a bitterness
immeasurable. She did not think he had ever honestly
believed that she loved him. But at least he had
never guessed at the actual repulsion with which at
times she had been filled. She was thankful to
think that he could never know that now, thankful that
now she had come into her womanhood it was all her
own. She valued her freedom almost extravagantly
since it had been given back to her. And she
also valued the fact that in no worldly sense was she
the richer for having been Ralph Dacre’s wife.
He had had no private means, and she was thankful
that this was so. She could not have endured to
reap any benefit from what she now regarded as a sin.
She had borne her punishment, she had garnered her
experience. And now she walked once more with
unshackled feet; and though all her life she would
carry the marks of the chain that had galled her she
had travelled far enough to realize and be thankful
for her liberty.

Page 60

The train rattled on through the night. Anxiety
came, wraith-like at first, drifting into her busy
brain. She had hardly had time to be anxious
in the rush of preparation and departure. But
restlessness paved the way. She began to ask
herself with growing uneasiness what could be awaiting
her at the end of the journey. The summons had
been so clear and imperative. Her first thought,
her instinct, had been to obey. Till the enforced
inaction of this train journey she had not had time
to feel the gnawing torture of suspense. But
now it came and racked her. The thought of Tommy
and his need became paramount. Did he know that
she was hastening to him, she wondered? Or had
he—­had he already passed beyond her reach?
Men passed so quickly in this tropical wilderness.
The solemn music of an anthem she had known and loved
in the old far-off days of her girlhood rose and surged
through her. She found herself repeating the
words:

“Our life is but a shadow;
So soon passeth
it away,
And we are gone,—­
So soon,—­so
soon.”

The repetition of those last words rang like a knell.
But Tommy! She could not think of Tommy’s
eager young life passing so. Those words were
written for the old and weary. But for such as
Tommy—­a thousand times No! He was
surely too ardent, too full of life, to pass so.
She felt as if he were years younger than herself.

And then another thought came to her, a curious haunting
thought. Was the Nemesis that had overtaken her
in the forbidden paradise yet pursuing her with relentless
persistence? Was the measure of her punishment
not yet complete? Did some further vengeance still
follow her in the wilderness of her desolation?
She tried to fling the thought from her, but it clung
like an evil dream. She could not wholly shake
off the impression that it had made upon her.

Slowly the night wore away. The heat was intense.
She felt as if she were sitting in a tank of steaming
vapour. The oppression of the atmosphere was
like a physical weight. And ever the rain beat
down, rattling, incessant, upon the tin roof above
her head. She thought of Nemesis again, Nemesis
wielding an iron flail that never missed its mark.
There was something terrible to her in this perpetual
beating of rain. She had never imagined anything
like it.

It was in the dark of the early morning that she began
at last to near her destination. A ten-mile drive
through the jungle awaited her, she knew. She
wondered if Monck had made provision for this or if
all arrangements would be left in Peter’s capable
hands. She had never felt more thankful for this
trusty servant of hers than now with the loneliness
and darkness of this unfamiliar world hedging her round.
She felt almost as one in a hostile country, and even
the thought of Tommy and his need could not dispel
the impression.

The train rattled into the little iron-built station
of Khanmulla. The rainfall seemed to increase
as they stopped. It was like the beating of rods
upon the station-roof. There came the usual hubbub
of discordant cries, but in foreign voices and in
a foreign tongue.

Page 61

Stella gathered her property together in readiness
for Peter. Then she turned, somewhat stiff after
her long journey, and found the door already swinging
open and a man’s broad shoulders blocking the
opening.

“How do you do?” said Monck.

She started at the sound of his voice. His face
was in the shadow, but in a moment his features, dark
and dominant, flashed to her memory. She bent
to him swiftly, with outstretched hand.

“How good of you to meet me! How is Tommy?”

He held her hand for an instant, and she was aware
of a sharp tingling throughout her being, as though
by means of that strong grasp he had imparted strength.
“He is about as bad as a man can be,” he
said. “Ralston has been with him all night.
I’ve borrowed his two-seater to fetch you.
Don’t waste any time!”

Her heart gave a throb of dismay. The brief words
were as flail-like as the rain. They demanded
no answer, and she made none; only instant submission,
and that she gave.

She had a glimpse of Peter’s tall form standing
behind Monck, and to him for a moment she turned as
she descended.

“You will see to everything?” she said.
“You will follow.”

“Leave all to me, my mem-sahib!”
he said, deeply bowing; and she took him at his word.

Monck had a military overcoat on his arm in which
he wrapped her before they left the station-shelter.
Ralston’s little two-seater car shed dazzling
beams of light through the dripping dark. She
floundered blindly into a pool of water before she
reached it, and was doubly startled by Monck lifting
her bodily, without apology, out of the mire, and
placing her on the seat. The beat of the rain
upon the hood made her wonder if they could make any
headway under it. And then, while she was still
wondering, the engine began to throb like a living
thing, and she was aware of Monck squeezing past her
to his seat at the wheel.

He did not speak, but he wrapped the rug firmly about
her, and almost before she had time to thank him,
they were in motion.

That night-ride was one of the wildest experiences
that she had ever known. Monck went like the
wind. The road wound through the jungle, and
in many places was little more than a rough track.
The car bumped and jolted, and seemed to cry aloud
for mercy. But Monck did not spare, and Stella
crouched beside him, too full of wonder to be afraid.

They emerged from the jungle at length and ran along
an open road between wide fields of rice or cotton.
Their course became easier, and Stella realized that
they were nearing the end of their journey. They
were approaching the native portion of Kurrumpore.

He did not answer her immediately; then, “He
was practically unconscious when I left,” he
said.

He put on speed with the words. They shot forward
through the pelting rain at a terrific pace.
She divined that his anxiety was such that he did
not wish to talk.

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They passed through the native quarter as if on wings.
The rain fell in a deluge here. It was like some
power of darkness striving to beat them back.
She pictured Monck’s face, grim, ruthless, forcing
his way through the opposing element. The man
himself she could barely see.

And then, almost before she realized it, they were
in the European cantonment, and she heard the grinding
of the brakes as they reached the gate of The Green
Bungalow. Monck turned the little car into the
compound, and a light shone down upon them from the
verandah.

The car came to a standstill. “Do you mind
getting out first?” said Monck.

She got out with a dazed sense of unreality.
He followed her immediately; his hand, hard and muscular,
grasped her arm. He led her up the wooden steps
all shining and slippery in the rain.

In the shelter of the verandah he stopped. “Wait
here a moment!” he said.

But Stella turned swiftly, detaining him. “No,
no!” she said. “I am coming with
you. I would rather know at once.”

He shrugged his shoulders without remonstrance, and
stood back for her to precede him. Later it seemed
to her that it was the most merciful thing he could
have done. At the time she did not pause to thank
him, but went swiftly past, taking her way straight
along the verandah to Tommy’s room.

The window was open, and a bar of light stretched
therefrom like a fiery sword into the streaming rain.
Just for a second that gleaming shaft daunted her.
Something within her shrank affrighted. Then,
aware of Monck immediately behind her, she conquered
her dread and entered. She saw that the bar of
light came from a hooded lamp which was turned towards
the window, leaving the bed in shadow. Over the
latter a man was bending. He straightened himself
sharply at her approach, and she recognized Major
Ralston.

And then she had reached the bed, and all the love
in her heart pulsed forth in yearning tenderness as
she stooped. “Tommy!” she said.
“My darling!”

He did not stir in answer. He lay like a figure
carved in marble. Suddenly the rays of the lamp
were turned upon him, and she saw that his face was
livid. The eyes were closed and sunken. A
terrible misgiving stabbed her. Almost involuntarily
she drew back.

In the same moment she felt Monck’s hands upon
her. He was unbuttoning the overcoat in which
she was wrapped. She stood motionless, feeling
cold, powerless, strangely dependent upon him.

As he stripped the coat back from her shoulders, he
spoke, his voice very measured and quiet, but kind
also, even soothing.

“Don’t give up!” he said. “We’ll
pull him through between us.”

A queer little thrill went through her. Again
she felt as if he had imparted strength. She
turned back to the bed.

Major Ralston was on the other side. Across that
silent form he spoke to her.

“See if you can get him to take this! I
am afraid he’s past it. But try!”

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She saw that he was holding a spoon, and she commanded
herself and took it from him. She wondered at
the steadiness of her own hand as she put it to the
white, unconscious lips. They were rigidly closed,
and for a few moments she thought her task was hopeless.
Then very slowly they parted. She slipped the
spoon between.

The silence in the room was deathly, the heat intense,
heavy, pall-like. Outside, the rain fell monotonously,
and, mingling with its beating, she heard the croaking
of innumerable frogs. Neither Ralston nor Monck
stirred a finger. They were watching closely with
bated breath.

Tommy’s breathing was wholly imperceptible,
but in that long, long pause she fancied she saw a
slight tremor at his throat. Then the liquid that
had been in the spoon began to trickle out at the corner
of his mouth.

She stood up, turning instinctively to the man beside
her. “Oh, it’s no use,” she
said hopelessly.

He had taken her place almost before she knew it.
She saw him stoop with absolute assurance and slip
his arm under the boy’s shoulders. Tommy’s
inert head fell back against him, but she saw his strong
right hand come out and take the spoon that Ralston
held out. His dark face was bent to his task,
and it held no dismay, only unswerving determination.

“Tommy!” he said again, and in his voice
was a certain grim tenderness that moved her oddly,
sending the tears to her eyes before she could check
them. “Tommy, wake up, man! If you
think you’re going out now, you’re damn
well mistaken. Wake up, do you hear? Wake
up and swallow this stuff! There! You’ve
got it. Now swallow—­do you hear?—­swallow!”

He held the spoon between Tommy’s lips till
it was emptied of every drop; then thrust it back
at Ralston.

“Here take it! Pour out some more!
Now, Tommy lad, it’s up to you! Swallow
it like a dear fellow! Yes, you can if you try.
Give your mind to it! Pull up, boy, pull up!
play the damn game! Don’t go back on me!
Ah, you didn’t know I was here, did you?
Thought you’d slope while my back was turned.
You weren’t quick enough, my lad. You’ve
got to come back.”

There was a strange note of passion in his voice.
It was obvious to Stella that he had utterly forgotten
himself in the gigantic task before him. Body
and soul were bent to its fulfillment. She could
see the perspiration running down his face. She
stood and watched, thrilled through and through with
the wonder of what she saw.

For at the call of that curt, insistent voice Tommy
moved and made response. It was like the return
of a departing spirit. He came out of that deathly
inertia. He opened his eyes upon Monck’s
face, staring up at him with an expression half-questioning
and half-expectant.

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Tommy’s throat worked spasmodically, he made
a mighty effort and succeeded in swallowing.
Then, through lips that twitched as if he were going
to cry, weakly he spoke.

“Hullo—­hullo—­you old bounder!”

“Hullo!” said Monck in stern rejoinder.
“A nice game this! Aren’t you ashamed
of yourself? You ought to be. I’m furious
with you. Do you know that?”

“Don’t care—­a damn,”
said Tommy, and forced his quivering lips to a smile.

“You will presently, you—­puppy!”
said Monck witheringly. “You’re more
bother than you’re worth. Come on, Ralston!
Give him another dose! Tommy, you hang on, or
I’ll know the reason why! There, you little
ass! What’s the matter with you?”

For Tommy’s smile had crumpled into an expression
of woe in spite of him. He turned his face into
Monck’s shoulder, piteously striving to hide
his weakness.

“Feel—­so beastly—­bad,”
he whispered.

“All right, old fellow, all right! I know.”
Monck’s hand was on his head, soothing, caressing,
comforting. “Stick to it like a Briton!
We’ll pull you round. Think I don’t
understand? What? But you’ve got to
do your bit, you know. You’ve got to be
game. And here’s your sister waiting to
lend a hand, come all the way to this filthy hole on
purpose. You are not going to let her see you
go under. Come, Tommy lad!”

The tears overflowed down Stella’s cheeks.
She dared not show herself. But, fortunately
for her, Tommy did not desire it. Monck’s
words took effect upon him, and he made a trembling
effort to pull himself together.

“Don’t let her see me—­like
this!” he murmured. “I’ll be
better presently. You tell her, old chap, and—­I
say—­look after her, won’t you?”

“All right, you cuckoo,” said Monck.

CHAPTER V

THE MORNING

Day broke upon a world of streaming rain. Stella
sat before a meal spread in the dining-room and wanly
watched it. Peter hovered near her; she had a
suspicion that the meal was somehow of his contriving.
But how he had arrived she had not the least idea
and was too weary to ask.

Tommy had fallen into natural sleep, and Ralston had
persuaded her to leave him in his care for a while,
promising to send for her at once if occasion arose.
She had left Monck there also, but she fancied Ralston
did not mean to let him stay. Her thoughts dwelt
oddly upon Monck. He had surprised her; more,
in some fashion he had pierced straight through her
armour of indifference. Wholly without intention
he had imposed his personality upon her. He had
made her recognize him as a force that counted.
Though Major Ralston had been engaged upon the same
task, she realized that it was his effort alone that
had brought Tommy back. And—­she saw
it clearly—­it was sheer love and nought
else that had obtained the mastery. This man
whom she had always regarded as a being apart, grimly

Page 65

self-contained, too ambitious to be capable of more
than a passing fancy, had shown her something in his
soul which she knew to be Divine. He was not,
it seemed, so aloof as she had imagined him to be.
The friendship between himself and Tommy was not the
one-sided affair that she and a good many others had
always believed it. He cared for Tommy, cared
very deeply. Somehow that fact made a vast difference
to her, such a difference as seemed to reach to the
very centre of her being. She felt as if she
had underrated something great.

The rush of the rain on the roof of the verandah seemed
to make coherent thought impossible. She gazed
at the meal before her and wondered if she could bring
herself to partake of it. Peter had put everything
ready to her hand, and in justice to him she felt
as if she ought to make the attempt. But a leaden
weariness was upon her. She felt more inclined
to sink back in her chair and sleep.

There came a sound behind her, and she was aware of
someone entering. She fancied it was Peter returned
to mark her progress, and stretched her hand to the
coffee-urn. But ere she touched it she knew that
she was mistaken. She turned and saw Monck.

By the grey light of the morning his face startled
her. She had never seen it look so haggard.
But out of it the dark eyes shone, alert and indomitable,
albeit she suspected that they had not slept for many
hours.

He made her a brief bow. “May I join you?”
he said.

His manner was formal, but she could not stand on
her dignity with him at that moment. Impulsively,
almost involuntarily it seemed to her later, she rose,
offering him both her hands. “Captain Monck,”
she said, “you are—­splendid!”

Words and action were alike wholly spontaneous.
They were also wholly unexpected. She saw a strange
look flash across his face. Just for a second
he hesitated. Then he took her hands and held
them fast.

“Ah—­Stella!” he said.

With the name his eyes kindled. His weariness
vanished as darkness vanishes before the glare of
electricity. He drew her suddenly and swiftly
to him.

For a few throbbing seconds Stella was so utterly
amazed that she made no resistance. He astounded
her at every turn, this man. And yet in some
strange and vital fashion her moods responded to his.
He was not beyond comprehension or even sympathy.
But as she found his dark face close to hers and felt
his eyes scorch her like a flame, expediency rather
than dismay urged her to action. There was something
so sublimely natural about him at that moment that
she could not feel afraid.

She drew back from him gasping. “Oh please—­please!”
she said. “Captain Monck, let me go!”

He held her still, though he drew her no closer.
“Must I?” he said. And in a lower
voice, “Have you forgotten how once in this very
room you told me—­that I had come to you—­too
late? And—­now!”

The last words seemed to vibrate through and through
her. She quivered from head to foot. She
could not meet the passion in his eyes, but desperately
she strove to cope with it ere it mounted beyond her
control.

Page 66

“Ah no, I haven’t forgotten,” she
said. “But I was a good deal younger then.
I didn’t know much of life. I have changed—­I
have changed enormously.”

“You have changed—­in that respect?”
he asked her, and she heard in his voice that note
of stubbornness which she had heard on that night that
seemed so long ago—­the night before her
marriage.

She freed one hand from his hold and set it pleadingly
against his breast. “That is a difficult
question to answer,” she said. “But
do you think a slave would willingly go back into
servitude when once he has felt the joy of freedom?”

“Is that what marriage means to you?”
he said.

She bent her head. “Yes.”

But still he did not let her go. “Stella,”
he said, “I haven’t changed since that
night.”

She trembled again, but she spoke no word, nor did
she raise her eyes.

He went on slowly, quietly, almost on a note of fatalism.
“It is beyond the bounds of possibility that
I should change. I loved you then, I love you
now. I shall go on loving you as long as I live.
I never thought it possible that you could care for
me—­until you told me so. But I shall
not ask you to marry me so long as the thought of marriage
means slavery to you. All I ask is that you will
not hold yourself back from loving me—­that
you will not be afraid to be true to your own heart.
Is that too much?”

His voice was steady again. She raised her eyes
and met his look. The passion had gone out of
it, but the dominance remained. She thrilled
again to the mastery that had held Tommy back from
death.

For a moment she could not speak. Then, as he
waited, she gathered her strength to answer.
“I mean to be true,” she said rather breathlessly.
“But I—­I value my freedom too much
ever to marry again. Please, I want you to understand
that. You mustn’t think of me in that way.
You mustn’t encourage hopes that can never be
fulfilled.”

A faint gleam crossed his face. “That is
my affair,” he said.

“Oh, but I mean it.” Quickly she
broke in upon him. “I am in earnest.
I am in earnest. It wouldn’t be right of
me to let you imagine—­to let you think—­”
she faltered suddenly, for something obstructed her
utterance. The next moment swiftly she covered
her face. “My dear!” he said.

He led her back to the table and made her sit down.
He knelt beside her, his arms comfortingly around
her.

“I’ve made you cry,” he said.
“You’re worn out. Forgive me!
I’m a brute to worry you like this. You’ve
had a rotten time of it, I know, I know. No,
don’t be afraid of me! I won’t say
another word. Just lean on me, that’s all.
I won’t let you down, I swear.”

She took him at his word for a space and leaned upon
him; for she had no alternative. She was weary
to the soul of her; her strength was gone.

But gradually his strength helped her to recover.
She looked up at length with a quivering smile.
“There! I am going to be sensible.
You must be worn out too. I can see you are.
Sit down, won’t you, and let us forget this?”

Page 67

He met her look steadily. “No, I can’t
forget,” he said. “But I shan’t
pester you. I don’t believe in pestering
any one. I shouldn’t have done it now,
only—­” he broke off faintly smiling—­“it’s
all Tommy’s fault, confound him!” he said,
and rose, giving her shoulder a pat that was somehow
more reassuring to her than any words.

She laughed rather tremulously. “Poor Tommy!
Now please sit down and have a rational meal!
You are looking positively gaunt. It will be
Tommy’s and my turn to nurse you next if you
are not careful.”

He pulled up a chair and seated himself. “What
a pleasing suggestion! But I doubt if Tommy’s
assistance will be very valuable to any one for some
little time to come. No milk in that coffee, please.
I will have some brandy.”

Looking back upon that early breakfast, Stella smiled
to herself though not without misgiving. For
somehow, in spite of what had preceded it, it was
a very light-hearted affair. She had never seen
Monck in so genial a mood. She had not believed
him capable of it. For though he looked wretchedly
ill, his spirits were those of a conqueror.

Doubtless he regarded the turn in Tommy’s illness
as a distinct and personal victory. But was that
his only cause for triumph? She wished she knew.

CHAPTER VI

THE NIGHT-WATCH

When Stella saw Tommy again, he greeted her with a
smile of welcome that told her that for him the worst
was over. He had returned. But his weakness
was great, greater than he himself realized, and she
very quickly comprehended the reason for Major Ralston’s
evident anxiety. Sickness was rife everywhere,
and now that the most imminent danger was past he
was able to spare but little time for Tommy’s
needs. He placed him in Stella’s care with
many repeated injunctions that she did her utmost
to fulfil.

For the first two days Monck helped her. His
management of Tommy was supremely arbitrary, and Tommy
submitted himself with a meekness that sometimes struck
Stella as excessive. But it was so evident that
the boy loved to have his friend near him, whatever
his mood, that she made no comments since Monck was
not arbitrary with her. She saw but little of
him after their early morning meal together, for when
he could spare the time to be with Tommy, she took
his advice and went to her room for the rest she so
sorely needed.

She hoped that Monck rested too during the hours that
she was on duty in the sick-room. She concluded
that he did so, though his appearance gave small testimony
to the truth of her supposition. Once or twice
coming upon him suddenly she was positively startled
by the haggardness of his look. But upon this
also she made no comment. It seemed advisable
to avoid all personal matters in her dealings with
him. She was aware that he suffered no interference
from Major Ralston whose time was in fact so fully
occupied at the hospital and elsewhere that he was
little likely to wish to add him to his sick list.

Page 68

Tommy’s recovery, however, was fairly rapid,
and on the third night after her arrival she was able
to lie down in his room and rest between her ministrations.
Ralston professed himself well satisfied with his
progress in the morning, and she looked forward to
imparting this favourable report to Monck. But
Monck did not make an appearance. She watched
for him almost unconsciously all through the day, but
he did not come. Tommy also watched for him,
and finally concluded somewhat discontentedly that
he had gone on some mission regarding which he had
not deemed it advisable to inform them.

“He is like that,” he told Stella, and
for the first time he spoke almost disparagingly of
his hero. “So beastly discreet. He
never thinks any one can keep a secret besides himself.”

“Ah well, never mind,” Stella said.
“We can do without him.”

But Tommy had reached the stage when the smallest
disappointment was a serious matter. He fretted
and grew feverish over his friend’s absence.

When Major Ralston saw him that evening he rated him
soundly, and even, Stella thought, seemed inclined
to blame her also for the set-back in his patient’s
condition.

“He must be kept quiet,” he insisted.
“It is absolutely essential, or we shall have
the whole trouble over again. I shall have to
give him a sedative and leave him to you. I can’t
possibly look in again to-night, so it will be useless
to send for me. You will have to manage as best
you can.”

He departed, and Stella arranged to divide the night-watches
with Peter the Great. She did not privately believe
that there was much ground for alarm, but in view
of the doctor’s very emphatic words she decided
to spend the first hours by Tommy’s side.
Peter would relieve her an hour after midnight, when
at his earnest request she promised to go to her room
and rest.

The sedative very speedily took effect upon Tommy
and he slept calmly while she sat beside him with
the light from the lamp turned upon her book.
But though her eyes were upon the open page her attention
was far from it. Her thoughts had wandered to
Monck and dwelt persistently upon him. The memory
of that last conversation she had had with Ralph Dacre
would not be excluded from her brain. What was
the meaning of this mysterious absence? What
was he doing? She felt uneasy, even troubled.
There was something about this Secret Service employment
which made her shrink, though she felt that had their
mutual relations been of the totally indifferent and
casual order she would not have cared. It seemed
to her well-nigh impossible to place any real confidence
in a man who deliberately concealed so great a part
of his existence. Her instinct was to trust him,
but her reason forbade. She was beginning to ask
herself if it would not be advisable to leave India
just as soon as Tommy could spare her. It seemed
madness to remain on if she desired to avoid any increase
of intimacy with this man who had already so far overstepped
the bounds of convention in his dealing with her.

Page 69

And yet—­in common honesty she had to admit
it—­she did not want to go. The attraction
that held her was as yet too intangible to be definitely
analyzed, but she could not deny its existence.
She did not love the man—­oh, surely she
did not love him—­for she did not want to
marry him. She brought her feelings to that touchstone
and it seemed that they were able to withstand the
test. But neither did she want to cut herself
finally adrift from all chance of contact with him.
It would hurt her to go. Probably—­almost
certainly—­she would wish herself back again.
But, the question remained unanswered, ought she to
stay? For the first time her treasured independence
arose and mocked her. She had it in her heart
to wish that the decision did not rest with herself.

It was at this point, while she was yet deep in her
meditations, that a slight sound at the window made
her look up. It was almost an instinctive movement
on her part. She could not have said that she
actually heard anything besides the falling rain which
had died down to a soft patter among the trees in
the compound. But something induced her took
up, and so doing, she caught a glimpse of a figure
on the verandah without that sent all the blood in
her body racing to her heart. It was but a momentary
glimpse. The next instant it was gone, gone like
a shadow, so that she found herself asking breathlessly
if it had ever been, or if by any means her imagination
had tricked her. For in that fleeting second
it seemed to her that the past had opened its gates
to reveal to her a figure which of late had drifted
into the back alleys of memory—­the figure
of the dreadful old native who, in some vague fashion,
she had come to regard as the cause of her husband’s
death.

She had never seen him again since that awful morning
when oblivion had caught her as it were on the very
edge of the world, but for long after he had haunted
her dreams so that the very thought of sleep had been
abhorrent to her. But now—­like the
grim ghost of that strange life that she had so resolutely
thrust behind her—­the whole revolting personality
of the man rushed vividly back upon her.

She sat as one petrified. Surely—­surely—­she
had seen him in the flesh! It could not have
been a dream. She was certain that she had not
slept. And yet—­how had that horrible
old Kashmiri beggar come all these hundreds of miles
from his native haunts? It was not likely.
It was barely possible. And yet she had always
been convinced that in some way he had known her husband
beforehand. Had he come then of set intention
to seek her out, perhaps to attempt to extract money
from her?

She could not answer the question, and her whole being
shrank from the thought of going out into the darkness
to investigate. She could not bring herself to
it. Actually she dared not.

Minutes passed. She sat still gazing and gazing
at the blank darkness of the window. Nothing
moved there. The wild beating of her heart died
gradually down. Surely it had been a mistake after
all! Surely she had fallen into a doze in the
midst of her reverie and dreamed this hateful apparition
with the gleaming eyes and famished face!

Page 70

She exerted her self-command and turned at last to
look at Tommy. He was sleeping peacefully with
his head on his arm. He would sleep all night
if undisturbed. She laid aside her book and softly
rose.

Her first intention was to go to the door and see
if Peter were in the passage. But the very fact
of moving seemed to give her courage. The man’s
rest would be short enough; it seemed unkind to disturb
him.

Resolutely she turned to the window, stifling all
qualms. She would not be a wretched coward.
She would see for herself.

The night was steaming hot, and there was a smell
of mildew in the air. A swarm of mosquitoes buzzed
in the glare thrown by the lamp with a shrill, attenuated
sound like the skirl of far-away bagpipes. A creature
with bat-like wings flapped with a monstrous ungainliness
between the outer posts of the verandah. From
across the compound an owl called on a weird note
of defiance. And in the dim waste of distance
beyond she heard the piercing cry of a jackal.
But close at hand, so far as the rays of the lamp
penetrated, she could discern nothing.

Stay! What was that? A bar of light from
another lamp lay across the verandah, stretching out
into the darkness. It came from the room next
to the one in which she stood. Her heart gave
a sudden hard throb. It came from Monck’s
room.

That meant—­that meant—­what did
it mean? That Monck had returned at that unusual
hour? Or that there really was a native intruder
who had found the window unfastened and entered?

Again the impulse to retreat and call Peter to deal
with the situation came upon her, but almost angrily
she shook it off. She would see for herself first.
If it were only Monck, then her fancy had indeed played
her false and no one should know it. If it were
any one else, it would be time enough then to return
and raise the alarm.

So, reasoning with herself, seeking to reassure herself,
crying shame on her fear, she stepped noiselessly
forth into the verandah and slipped, silent as that
shadow had been, through the intervening space of
darkness to the open window of Monck’s room.

She reached it, was blinded for a moment by the light
that poured through it, then, recovering, peered in.

A man, dressed in pyjamas, stood facing her, so close
to her that he seemed to be in the act of stepping
forth. She recognized him in a second. It
was Monck,—­but Monck as she never before
had seen him, Monck with eyes alight with fever and
lips drawn back like the lips of a snarling animal.
In his right hand he gripped a revolver.

He saw her as suddenly as she saw him, and a rapid
change crossed his face. He reached out and caught
her by the shoulder.

“Come in! Come in!” he said, his
words rushing over each other in a confused jumble
utterly unlike his usual incisive speech. “You’re
safe in here. I’ll shoot the brute if he
dares to come near you again.”

Page 71

She saw that he was not himself. The awful fire
in his eyes alone would have told her that. But
words and action so bewildered her that she yielded
to the compelling grip. In a moment she was in
the room, and he was closing and shuttering the window
with fevered haste.

She stood and watched him, a cold sensation beginning
to creep about her heart. When he turned round
to her, she saw that he was smiling, a fierce, triumphant
smile.

He threw down the revolver, and as he did so, she
found her voice. “Captain Monck, what does
that man want? What—­what is he doing?”

He stood looking at her with that dreadful smile about
his lips and the red fire leaping, leaping in his
eyes. “Can’t you guess what he wants?”
he said. “He wants—­you.”

“Me?” She gazed back at him astounded.
“But why—­why? Does he want to
get money out of me? Where has he gone?”

Monck laughed, a low, terrible laugh. “Never
mind where he has gone! I’ve frightened
him off, and I’ll shoot him—­I’ll
shoot him—­if he comes back! You’re
mine now—­not his. You were right to
come to me, quite right. I was just coming to
you. But this is better. No one can come
between us now. I know how to protect my wife.”

He reached out his hands to her as he ended.
His eyes shocked her inexpressibly. They held
a glare that was inhuman, almost devilish.

She drew back from him in open horror. “Captain
Monck! I am not your wife! What can you
be thinking of? You—­you are not yourself.”

She turned with the words, seeking the door that led
into the passage. He made no attempt to check
her. Instinct told her, even before she laid
her hand upon it, that it was locked.

She turned back, facing him with all her courage.
“Captain Monck, I command you to let me go!”

Clear and imperious her voice fell, but it had no
more visible effect upon him than the drip of the
rain outside. He came towards her swiftly, with
the step of a conqueror, ignoring her words as though
they had never been uttered.

“I know how to protect my wife,” he reiterated.
“I will shoot any man who tries to take you
from me.”

He reached her with the words, and for the first time
she flinched, so terrible was his look. She shrank
away from him till she stood against the closed door.
Through lips that felt stiff and cold she forced her
protest.

“Indeed—­indeed—­you don’t
know what you are doing. Open the door and—­let
me—­go!”

Her voice sounded futile even to herself. Before
she ceased to speak, his arms were holding her, his
lips, fiercely passionate, were seeking hers.

She struggled to avoid them, but her strength was
as a child’s. He quelled her resistance
with merciless force. He choked the cry she tried
to utter with the fiery insistence of his kisses.
He held her crushed against his heart, so overwhelming
her with the volcanic fires of his passion that in
the end she lay in his hold helpless and gasping, too
shattered to oppose him further.

Page 72

She scarcely knew when the fearful tempest began to
abate. All sense of time and almost of place
had left her. She was dizzy, quivering, on fire,
wholly incapable of coherent thought, when at last
it came to her that the storm was arrested.

It sounded like the question of a man suddenly awaking
from a wild dream. She felt the arms that held
her relax their grip. She knew that he was looking
at her with eyes that held once more the light of reason.
And, oddly, that fact affected her rather with dismay
than relief. Burning from head to foot, she turned
her own away.

She felt his hand pass over her shamed and quivering
face as though to assure himself that she was actually
there in the flesh. And then abruptly—­so
abruptly that she tottered and almost fell—­he
set her free.

He turned from her. “God help me!
I am mad!” he said.

She stood with throbbing pulses, gasping for breath,
feeling as one who had passed through raging fires
into a desert of smouldering ashes. She seemed
to be seared from head to foot. The fiery torment
of his kisses had left her tingling in every nerve.

He moved away to the table on which he had flung his
revolver, and stood there with his back to her.
He was swaying a little on his feet.

Without looking at her, he spoke, his voice shaky,
wholly unfamiliar. “You had better go.
I—­I am not safe. This damned fever
has got into my brain.”

She leaned against the door in silence. Her physical
strength was coming back to her, but yet she could
not move, and she had no words to speak. He seemed
to have reft from her every faculty of thought and
feeling save a burning sense of shame. By his
violence he had broken down all her defences.
She seemed to have lost both the power and the will
to resist. She remained speechless while the
dreadful seconds crept away.

He turned round upon her at length suddenly, almost
with a movement of exasperation. And then something
that he saw checked him. He stood silent, as
if not knowing how to proceed.

Across the room their eyes met and held for the passage
of many throbbing seconds. Then slowly a change
came over Monck. He turned back to the table
and deliberately picked up the revolver that lay there.

She watched him fascinated. Over his shoulder
he spoke. “You will think me mad.
Perhaps it is the most charitable conclusion you could
come to. But I fully realize that when a thing
is beyond an apology, it is an insult to offer one.
The key of the door is under the pillow on the bed.
Perhaps you will not mind finding it for yourself.”

He sat down with the words in a heavy, dogged fashion,
holding the revolver dangling between his knees.
There was grim despair in his attitude; his look was
that of a man utterly spent. It came to Stella
at that moment that the command of the situation had
devolved upon her, and with it a heavier responsibility
than she had ever before been called upon to bear.

Page 73

She put her own weakness from her with a resolution
born of expediency, for the need for strength was
great. She crossed the room to the bed, felt
for and found the key, returned to the door and inserted
it in the lock. Then she paused.

He had not moved. He was not watching her.
He sat as one sunk deep in dejection, bowed beneath
a burden that crushed him to the earth. But there
was even in his abasement a certain terrible patience
that sent an icy misgiving to her heart. She
did not dare to leave him so.

It needed all the strength she could muster to approach
him, but she compelled herself at last. She came
to him. She stood before him.

“Captain Monck!” she said.

Her voice sounded small and frightened even in her
own ears. She clenched her hands with the effort
to be strong.

He scarcely stirred. His eyes remained downcast.
He spoke no word.

She bent a little. “Captain Monck, if you
have fever, you had better go to bed.”

He moved slightly, influenced possibly by the increasing
steadiness of her voice. But still he did not
look at her or speak.

She saw that his hold upon the revolver had tightened
to a grip, and, prompted by an inner warning that
she could not pause to question, she bent lower and
laid her hand upon his arm. “Please give
that to me!” she said.

He started at her touch; he almost recoiled.
“Why?” he said.

His voice was harsh and strained, even savage.
But the needed strength had come to Stella, and she
did not flinch.

“You have no use for it just now,” she
said. “Please be sensible and let me have
it!”

“Sensible!” he said.

His eyes sought hers suddenly, involuntarily, and
she had a sense of shock which she was quick to control;
for they held in their depths the torment of hell.

“You are wrong,” he said, and the deadly
intention of his voice made her quiver afresh.
“I have a use for it. At least I shall have—­presently.
There are one or two things to be attended to first.”

It was then that a strange and new authority came
upon Stella, as if an unknown force had suddenly inspired
her. She read his meaning beyond all doubting,
and without an instant’s hesitation she acted.

“Captain Monck,” she said, “you
have made a mistake. You have done nothing that
is past forgiveness. You must take my word for
that, for just now you are ill and not in a fit state
to judge for yourself. Now please give me that
thing, and let me do what I can to help you!”

Practical and matter-of-fact were her words.
She marvelled at herself even as she stooped and laid
a steady hand upon the weapon he held. Her action
was purposeful, and he relinquished it. The misery
in his eyes gave place to a dumb curiosity.

“Now,” Stella said, “get to bed,
and I will bring you some of Tommy’s quinine.”

She turned from him, revolver in hand, but paused
and in a moment turned back.

Page 74

“Captain Monck, you heard what I said, didn’t
you? You will go straight to bed?”

Her voice held a hint of pleading, despite its insistence.
He straightened himself in his chair. He was
still looking at her with an odd wonder in his eyes—­wonder
that was mixed with a very unusual touch of reverence.

“I will do—­whatever you wish,”
he said.

“Thank you,” said Stella. “Then
please let me find you in bed when I come back!”

She turned once more to go, went to the door and opened
it. From the threshold she glanced back.

He was on his feet, gazing after her with the eyes
of a man in a trance.

She lifted her hand. “Now remember!”
she said, and with that passed quietly out, closing
the door behind her.

Her brain was in a seething turmoil and her heart
was leaping within her like a wild thing suddenly
caged. But, very strangely, all fear had departed
from her.

Only a brief interval before, she had found herself
wishing that the decision of her life’s destiny
had not rested entirely with herself. It seemed
to her that a great revelation had been vouchsafed
between the amazing present and those past moments
of troubled meditation. And she knew now that
it did not.

CHAPTER VII

SERVICE RENDERED

The news that Monck was down with the fever brought
both the Colonel and Major Ralston early to the bungalow
on the following morning.

They found Stella and the ever-faithful Peter in charge
of both patients. Tommy was better though weak.
Monck was in a high fever and delirious.

Stella was in the latter’s room, for he would
not suffer her out of his sight. She alone seemed
to have any power to control him, and Ralston noted
the fact with astonishment.

“There’s some magic about you,”
he observed in his blunt fashion. “Are
you going to take on this job? It’s no light
one but you’ll probably do it better than any
one else.”

It was a tacit invitation, and Stella knowing how
widespread was the sickness that infected the station,
accepted it without demur.

“It rather looks as if it were my job, doesn’t
it?” she said. “I am willing, anyway
to do my best.”

Ralston looked at her with a gleam of approval, but
the Colonel drew her aside to remonstrate.

“It’s not fit for you. You’ll
be ill yourself. If Ralston weren’t nearly
at his wit’s end he’d never dream of allowing
it.”

But Stella heard the protest with a smile. “Believe
me, I am only too glad to be able to do something
useful for a change,” she assured him.
“As to being ill myself, I will promise not to
behave so badly as that.”

“You’re a brick, my dear,” said
Colonel Mansfield. “I wish there were more
like you. Mind you take plenty of quinine!”
With which piece of fatherly advice he left her with
the determination to keep an eye on her and see that
Ralston did not work her too hard.

Page 75

Stella, however, had no fears on her own account.
She went to her task resolute and undismayed, feeling
herself actually indispensable for almost the first
time in her life. Her influence upon Monck was
beyond dispute. She alone possessed the power
to calm him in his wildest moments, and he never failed
to recognize her or to control himself to a certain
extent in her presence.

The attack was a sharp one, and for a while Ralston
was more uneasy than he cared to admit. But Monck’s
constitution was a good one, and after three days
of acute illness the fever began to subside. Tommy
was by that time making good progress, and Stella,
who till then had snatched her rest when and how she
could, gave her charge into Peter’s keeping
and went to bed for the first time since her arrival
at Kurrumpore.

Till she actually lay down she did not realize how
utterly worn out she was, or how little the odd hours
of sleep that she had been able to secure had sufficed
her. But as she laid her head upon the pillow,
slumber swept upon her on soundless wings. She
slept almost before she had time to appreciate the
exquisite comfort of complete repose.

That slumber of hers lasted for many hours. She
had given Peter express injunctions to awake her in
good time in the morning, and she rested secure in
the confidence that he would obey her orders.
But it was the light of advancing evening that filled
the room when at last she opened her eyes.

There had come a break in the rain, and a bar of misty
sunshine had penetrated a chink in the green blinds
and lay golden across the Indian matting on the floor.
She lay and gazed at it with a bewildered sense of
uncertainty as to her whereabouts. She felt as
if she had returned from a long journey, and for a
time her mind dwelt hazily upon the Himalayan paradise
from which she had been so summarily cast forth.
Vague figures flitted to and fro through her brain
till finally one in particular occupied the forefront
of her thoughts. She found herself recalling
every unpleasant detail of the old Kashmiri beggar
who had lured Ralph Dacre from her side on that last
fateful night. The old question arose within
her and would not be stifled. Had the man murdered
and robbed him ere flinging him down to the torrent
that had swept his body away? The wonder tormented
her as of old, but with renewed intensity. She
had awaked with the conviction strong upon her that
the man was not far away, that she had seen him recently,
and that Everard Monck had seen him also.

That brought her thoughts very swiftly to the present,
to Monck’s illness and dependence upon her,
and in a flash to the realization that she had spent
nearly the whole day as well as the night in sleep.
In keen dismay she started from her bed and began
a rapid toilet.

A quarter of an hour later she heard Peter’s
low, discreet knock at the door, and bade him enter.
He came in with a tea-tray, smiling upon her with
such tender solicitude that she had it not in her heart
to express any active annoyance with him.

Page 76

“Oh, Peter, you should have called me hours
ago!” was all she found to say.

He set down the tray with a deep salaam. “But
the captain sahib would not permit me,”
he said.

“He is better?” Stella asked quickly.

“He is much better, my mem-sahib.
The doctor sahib smiled upon him only this
afternoon and told him he was a damn’ fraud.
So my mem-sahib may set her mind at rest.”

Obviously the term constituted a high compliment in
Peter’s estimation and the evident satisfaction
that it afforded to Stella seemed to confirm the impression.
He retired looking as well pleased as Stella had ever
seen him.

She finished dressing as speedily as possible, ate
a hasty meal, and hastened to Tommy’s room.
To her surprise she found it empty, but as she turned
on the threshold the sound of her brother’s laugh
came to her through the passage. Evidently Tommy
was visiting his fellow sufferer.

With a touch of anxiety as to Monck’s fitness
to receive a visitor, she turned in the direction
of the laugh. But at Monck’s door she paused,
constrained by something that checked her almost like
a hand laid upon her. The blood ran up to her
temples and beat through her brain. She found
she could not enter.

As she stood there hesitating, Monck’s voice
came to her, quiet and rational. She could not
hear what he said, but Tommy’s more impetuous
tones cutting in were clearly audible.

“Oh, rats, my dear fellow! Don’t
be so damn’ modest! You’re worth a
score of Dacres and you bet she knows it.”

Stella tingled from head to foot. In another
moment she would have passed swiftly on, but even
as the impulse came to her it was frustrated.
The door in front of her suddenly opened, and she was
face to face with Monck himself.

He stood leaning slightly on the handle of the door.
He was draped in a long dressing-gown of Oriental
silk that hung upon him dejectedly as if it yearned
for a stouter tenant. In it he looked leaner and
taller than he had ever seemed to her before.
He had a cigarette between his lips, but this he removed
with a flicker of humour as he observed her glance.

“Caught in the act,” he remarked.
“Please come in!”

Something that was very far from humour impelled Stella
to say quickly, “I hope you don’t imagine
I was eavesdropping.”

He looked sardonic for an instant. “No,
I do not so far flatter myself,” he said.
“I was referring to my cigarette.”

She entered, striving for dignity. Then as his
attitude caught her attention she forgot herself and
turned upon him in genuine dismay. “What
are you doing out of bed? You know you are not
fit for it. Oh, how wrong of you! Take my
arm!”

He transferred his hand from the door to her shoulder,
and she felt it tremble though his hold was strong.

“May I not sit up to tea with you, nurse sahib?”
he suggested, as she piloted him firmly to the bedside.

Page 77

“Of course not,” she made answer.
The consciousness of his weakness had fully restored
her confidence and her authority. “Besides,
I have had mine. Tommy, you too! It is too
bad, I shall never dare to close my eyes again.”

At this point Monck laughed so suddenly and boyishly
that she found it utterly impossible to continue her
reproaches. He humbly apologized as he subsided
upon the bed, and turning to Tommy who, fully dressed,
was reclining at his ease in a deck-chair by its side
said with a smile, “You get back to your own
compartment, my son. It isn’t good for me
to have two people in the room with me at the same
time. And your sister wants to take my pulse
undisturbed.”

“Or listen to your heart?” suggested Tommy
irreverently as he rose.

“Turn him out!” said Monck, leaning luxuriously
upon the pillows that Stella arranged for him.

Tommy laughed as he sauntered away, pulling the door
carelessly after him but recalled by Monck to shut
it.

A sudden silence followed his departure. Stella
was at the window, looping back the curtains.
The vague sunlight still smote across the dripping
compound; the whole plain was smoking like a mighty
cauldron. Stella finished her task and stood
still.

Across the silence came Monck’s voice.
“Aren’t you going to give me my medicine?”

She turned slowly round. “I think you are
nearly equal to doctoring yourself now,” she
said.

He was lying raised on his elbow, his eyes, intent
and searching, fixed upon her. Abruptly, in a
different tone, he spoke. “In other words,
quit fooling and play the game!” he said.
“All right, I will—­to the best of
my ability. First of all, may I tell you something
that Ralston said to me this morning?”

“Certainly.” Stella’s voice
sounded constrained and formal. She remained
with her back to the window; for some reason she did
not want him to see her face too clearly.

“It was only this,” said Monck. “He
said that I had you to thank for pulling me through
this business, that but for you I should probably
have gone under. Ralston isn’t given to
saying that sort of thing. So—­if you
will allow me—­I should like to thank you
for the trouble you have taken and for the service
rendered.”

“Please don’t!” Stella said.
“After all, it was no more than you did for
Tommy, nor so much.” She spoke nervously,
avoiding his look.

The shadow of a smile crossed Monck’s face.
“I chance to be rather fond of Tommy,”
he said, “so my motive was more or less a selfish
one. But you had not that incentive, so I should
be all the more grateful. I am afraid I have
given you a lot of trouble. Have you found me
very difficult to manage?”

He put the question suddenly, almost imperiously.
Stella was conscious of a momentary surprise.
There was something in the tone rather than the words
that puzzled her. She hesitated over her reply.

Page 78

“You have?” said Monck. “That
means I have been very unruly. Do you mind telling
me what happened on the night I was taken ill?”

She felt a burning blush rush up to her face and neck
before she could check it. It was impossible
to attempt to hide her distress from him. She
forced herself to speak before it overwhelmed her.
“I would rather not discuss it or think of it.
You were not yourself, and I—­and I—­”

“And you?” said Monck, his voice suddenly
sunk very low.

She commanded herself with a supreme effort.
“I wish to forget it,” she said with firmness.

He was silent for a moment or two. She began
to wonder if it would be possible to make her escape
before he could pursue the subject further. And
then he spoke, and she knew that she must remain.

“You are very generous,” he said, “more
generous than I deserve. Will it help matters
at all if I tell you that I would give all I have to
be able to forget it too, or to believe that the thing
I remember was just one of the wild delusions of my
brain?”

His voice was deep and sincere. In spite of herself
she was moved by it. She came forward to his
side. “The past is past,” she said,
and gave him her hand.

He took it and held it, looking at her in his straight,
inscrutable way. “True, most gracious!”
he said. “But I haven’t quite done
with it yet. Will you hear me a moment longer?
You have of your goodness pardoned my outrageous behaviour,
so I make no further allusion to that, except to tell
you that I had been tempted to try a native drug which
in its effects was worse than the fever pure and simple.
But there is one point which only you can make clear.
How was it you came to seek me out that night?”

His grasp upon her hand was reassuring though she
felt the quiver of physical weakness in its hold.
It was the grasp of a friend, and her embarrassment
began to fall away from her.

“I came,” she said, “because I had
been startled. I had no idea you were anywhere
near. I was really investigating the verandah
because of—­of something I had seen, when
the light from this window attracted me. I thought
possibly someone had broken in.”

“Will you tell me what startled you?”
Monck said.

She looked at him. “It was a man—­an
old native beggar. I only saw him for a moment.
I was in Tommy’s room, and he came and looked
in at me. You—­you must have seen him
too. You were talking very excitedly about him.
You threatened to shoot him.”

“Was that how you came to deprive me of my revolver?”
questioned Monck.

She coloured again vividly. “No, I thought
you were going to shoot yourself. I will give
it back to you presently.”

“When you consider that I can be safely trusted
with it?” he suggested, with his brief smile.
“But tell me some more about this mysterious
old beggar of yours! What was he like?”

She hesitated momentarily. “I only had
a very fleeting glimpse of him. I can’t
tell you what he was really like. But—­he
reminded me of someone I never want to think of or
suffer myself to think of again if I can help it.”

Page 79

“Who?” said Monck.

His voice was quiet, but it held insistence.
She felt as if his eyes pierced her, compelling her
reply.

“A horrible old native—­a positive
nightmare of a man—­whom I shall always
regard as in some way the cause of my husband’s
death.”

In the pause that followed her words, Monck’s
hand left hers. He lay still looking at her,
but with that steely intentness that told her nothing.
She could not have said whether he were vitally interested
in the matter or not when he spoke again.

“You think that he was murdered then?”

A sharp shudder went through her. “I am
very nearly convinced of it,” she said.
“But I shall never know for certain now.”

“And you imagine that the murderer can have
followed you here?” he pursued.

“No! Oh no!” Hastily she made answer.
“It is ridiculous of course. He would never
be such a fool as to do that. It was only my imagination.
I saw the figure at the window and was reminded of
him.”

“Are you sure the figure at the window was not
imagination too?” said Monck. “Forgive
my asking! Such things have happened.”

“Oh, I know,” Stella said. “It
is a question I have been asking myself ever since.
But, you know—­” she smiled faintly—­“I
had no fever that night. Besides, I fancy you
saw him too.”

His smile met hers. “I saw many things
that night as they were not. And you also were
overwrought and very tired. Perhaps you had had
an exciting supper!”

She saw that he meant to turn the subject away from
her husband’s death, and a little thrill of
gratitude went through her. He had seen how reluctant
she was to speak of it. She followed his lead
with relief.

“Perhaps—­perhaps,” she said.
“We will say so anyhow. And now, do you
know, I think you had better have your tea and rest.
You have done a lot of talking, and you will be getting
feverish again if I let you go on. I will send
Peter in with it.”

He raised one eyebrow with a wry expression.
“Must it be Peter?” he said.

She relented. “I will bring it myself if
you will promise not to talk.”

“Ah!” he said. “And if I promise
that—­will you promise me one thing too?”

She paused. “What is that?”

His eyes met hers, direct but baffling. “Not.
to run away from me,” he said.

The quick blood mounted again in her face. She
stood silent.

He lifted an urgent hand. “Stella, in heaven’s
name, don’t be afraid of me!”

She laid her hand again in his. She could not
do otherwise. She wanted to beg him to say nothing
further, to let her go in peace. But no words
would come. She stood before him mute.

And—­perhaps he knew what was in her mind—­Monck
was silent also after that single earnest appeal of
his. He held her hand for a few seconds, and
then very quietly let it go. She knew by his action
that he would respect her wish for the time at least
and say no more.

Page 80

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRUCE

Tommy was in a bad temper with everyone—­a
most unusual state of affairs. The weather was
improving every day; the rains were nearly over.
He was practically well again, too well to be sent
to Bhulwana on sick leave, as Ralston brutally told
him; but it was not this fact that had upset his internal
equilibrium. He did not want sick leave, and
bluntly said so.

“Then what the devil do you want?” said
Ralston, equally blunt and ready to resent irritation
from one who in his opinion was too highly favoured
of the gods to have any reasonable grounds for complaint.

Tommy growled an inarticulate reply. It was not
his intention to confide in Ralston whatever his grievance.
But Ralston, not to be frustrated, carried the matter
to Monck, then on the high road to recovery.

“What in thunder is the matter with the young
ass?” he demanded. “He gets more
lantern-jawed and obstreperous every day.”

“Leave him to me!” said Monck. “Discharge
him as cured! I’ll manage him.”

“But that’s just what he isn’t,”
grumbled Ralston. “He ought to be well.
So far as I can make out, he is well. But he goes
about looking like a sick fly and stinging before
you touch him.”

“Leave him to me!” Monck said again.

That afternoon as he and Tommy lounged together on
the verandah after the lazy fashion of convalescents,
he turned to the boy in his abrupt fashion.

“Look here, Tommy!” he said. “What
are you making yourself so conspicuously unpleasant
for? It’s time you pulled up.”

Tommy turned crimson. “I?” he stammered.
“Who says so? Stella?”

There was the suspicion of a smile about Monck’s
grim mouth as he made reply. “No; not Stella,
though she well might. I’ve heard you being
beastly rude to her more than once. What’s
the matter with you? Want a kicking, eh?”

Tommy hunched himself in his wicker chair with his
chin on his chest. “No, want to kick,”
he said in a savage undertone.

Monck laughed briefly. He was standing against
a pillar of the verandah. He turned and sat down
unexpectedly on the arm of Tommy’s chair.
“Who do you want to kick?” he said.

Tommy glanced at him and was silent.

“Significant!” commented Monck. He
put his hand with very unwonted kindness upon the
lad’s shoulder. “What do you want
to kick me for, Tommy?” he asked.

Tommy shrugged the shoulder under his hand. “If
you don’t know, I can’t tell you,”
he said gruffly.

Monck’s fingers closed with quiet persistence.
“Yes, you can. Out with it!” he said.

But Tommy remained doggedly silent.

Several seconds passed. Then very suddenly Monck
raised his hand and smote him hard on the back.

“Damn!” said Tommy, straightening involuntarily.

“That’s better,” said Monck.
“That’ll do you good. Don’t
curl up again! You’re getting disgracefully
round-shouldered. Like to have a bout with the
gloves?”

Page 81

There was not a shade of ill-feeling in his voice.
Tommy turned round upon him with a smile as involuntary
as his exclamation had been.

“What a brute you are, Monck! You have
such a beastly trick of putting a fellow in the wrong.”

“You are in the wrong,” asserted Monck.
“I want to get you out of it if I can.
What’s the grievance? What have I done?”

Tommy hesitated for a moment, then finally reached
up and gripped the hand upon his shoulder. “Monck!
I say, Monck!” he said boyishly. “I
feel such a cur to say it. But—­but—­”
he broke off abruptly. “I’m damned
if I can say it!” he decided dejectedly.

Tommy brightened a little. “It’s
infernally difficult—­taking you to task,”
he explained blushing a still fierier red. “You’ll
never speak to me again after this.”

Monck laughed. “Yes, I shall. I shall
respect you for it. Get on with it, man!
What’s the trouble?”

With immense effort Tommy made reply. “Well,
it’s pretty beastly to have to ask any fellow
what his intentions are with regard to his sister,
but you pretty nearly told me yours.”

“Then what more do you want?” questioned
Monck.

Tommy made a gesture of helplessness. “Damn
it, man! Don’t you know she is making plans
to go Home?”

“Well?” said Monck.

Tommy faced round. “I say, like a good
chap,—­you’ve practically forced this,
you know—­you’re not going to—­to
let her go?”

Monck’s eyes looked back straight and hard.
He did not speak for a moment; then, “You want
to know my intentions, Tommy,” he said.
“You shall. Your sister and I are observing
a truce for the present, but it won’t last for
ever. I am making plans for a move myself.
I am going to live at the Club.”

Tommy made a sound expressive of gross irreverence.
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Now we know
where we are. I’ve been feeling pretty rotten
about it, I can tell you.”

“You always were an ass, weren’t you?”
said Monck, getting up.

Tommy got up too, giving himself an impatient shake.
He pushed an apologetic hand through Monck’s
arm. “I can’t expect ever to get even
with a swell like you,” he said humbly,

Monck looked at him. Something in the boy’s
devotion seemed to move him, for his eyes were very
kindly though his laugh was ironic. “You’ll
have an almighty awakening one of these days, my son,”
he said. “By the way, if we are going to
be brothers, you had better call me by my Christian
name.”

“By Jove, I will,” said Tommy eagerly.
“And if there is anything I can do, old chap—­anything
under the sun—­”

“I’ll let you know,” said Monck.

Page 82

So, like the lifting of a thunder cloud, Tommy’s
very unwonted fit of temper merged into a mood of
great benignity and Ralston complained no more.

Monck took up his abode at the Club before the brief
winter season brought the angels flitting back from
Bhulwana to combine pleasure with duty at Kurrumpore.

Stella accepted his departure without comment, missing
him when gone after a fashion which she would have
admitted to none. She did not wholly understand
his attitude, but Tommy’s serenity of demeanour
made her somewhat suspicious; for Tommy was transparent
as the day.

Mrs. Ralston’s return made her life considerably
easier. They took up their friendship exactly
where they had left it and found it wholly satisfactory.
When Lady Harriet Mansfield made her stately appearance,
Stella’s position was assured. No one looked
askance at her any longer. Even Mrs. Burton’s
criticism was limited to a strictly secret smile.

Netta Ermsted was the last to leave Bhulwana.
She returned nervous and fretful, accompanied by Tessa
whose joy over rejoining her friends was as patent
as her mother’s discontent. Tessa had a
great deal to say in disparagement of the Rajah of
Markestan, and said it so often and with such emphasis
that at last Captain Ermsted’s patience gave
way and he forbade all mention of the man under penalty
of a severe slapping. When Tessa had ignored
the threat for the third time he carried it out with
such thoroughness that even Netta was startled into
remonstrance.

“You are quite right to keep the child in order,”
she said. “But you needn’t treat
her like that. I call it brutal.”

“You can call it what you like,” said
Ermsted. “I did it quite as much for your
benefit as for hers.”

Netta tossed her head. “I’m not a
sentimental mother,” she observed. “You
won’t punish me in that way. I object to
a commotion, that’s all.”

He took her by the shoulder. “Do you?”
he said. “Then I advise you to be mighty
careful, for, I warn you, my blood is up.”

She made a face at him, albeit there was a quality
of menace in his hold. “Are you going to
treat me as you have just treated Tessa?”

His teeth were clenched upon his lower lip. “Don’t
be a little devil, Netta!” he said.

She snapped her fingers. “Then don’t
you be a big fool, most noble Richard! It doesn’t
pay to bully a woman. She can always get her own
back one way or another. Remember that!”

He gripped her suddenly by both arms. “By
Heaven!” he said passionately. “I’ll
do worse than beat you if you dare to trifle with me!”

She tried to laugh, but his look frightened her.
She turned as white as the muslin wrap she wore.
“Richard—­Dick—­don’t,”
she gasped helplessly.

He held her locked to him. “You’ve
gone too far,” he said.

“I haven’t, Dick! I haven’t!”
she protested. “Dick, I swear to you—­I
have never—­I have never—­”

Page 83

He stopped the words upon her lips with his own, but
his kiss was terrible. She shrank from it trembling,
appalled.

In a moment he let her go, and she sank upon her couch,
hiding her quivering face with convulsive weeping.

“You are cruel! You are cruel!” she
sobbed.

He remained beside her, looking down at her till some
of the sternness passed from his face.

He bent at last and touched her. “I’m
not cruel,” he said. “I’m just
in earnest, that’s all. You be careful
for the future! There’s a bit of the devil
in me too when I’m goaded.”

She drew herself away from him, half-frightened still
and half petulant. “You used to be—­ever
so much nicer than you are now,” she said, keeping
her face averted.

He answered her sombrely as he turned away, “I
used to have a wife that I honoured before all creation.”

She sprang to her feet. “Dick! How
can you be so horrid?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he walked to the door.
“I was—­a big fool,” he said
very bitterly.

The door closed upon him. Netta stood staring
at it, tragic and tear-stained.

Suddenly she stamped her foot and whirled round in
a rage. “I won’t be treated like
a naughty child! I won’t—­I won’t!
I’ll write to my Arabian Knight—­I’ll
write now—­and tell him how wretched I am!
If Dick objects to our friendship I’ll just
leave him, that’s all. I was a donkey ever
to marry him. I always knew we shouldn’t
get on.”

She paused, listening, half-fearing, half-hoping,
that she had heard him returning. Then she heard
his voice in the next room. He was talking to
Tessa.

She set her lips and went to her writing-table.
“Oh yes, he can make it up with his child when
he knows he has been brutal; but never a single kind
word to his wife—­not one word!”

She took up a pen with fingers that trembled with
indignation, and began to write.

CHAPTER IX

THE OASIS

For two months Tommy possessed his impulsive soul
in patience. For two months he watched Monck
go his impassive and inscrutable way, asking no further
question. The gaieties of the station were in
full swing. Christmas was close at hand.

Stella was making definite plans for departure in
the New Year. She could not satisfy herself with
an idle life, though Tommy vehemently opposed the
idea of her going. Monck never opposed it.
He listened silently when she spoke of it, sometimes
faintly smiling. She often saw him. He came
to the Green Bungalow in Tommy’s company at all
hours of the day. She met him constantly at the
Club, and he never failed to come to her side there
and by some means known only to himself to banish the
crowd of subalterns who were wont to gather round her.
He asserted no claim, but the claim existed and was
mutely recognized. He never spoke to her intimately.
He never attempted to pass the bounds of ordinary
friendship. Only very rarely did he make her aware
that her company was a pleasure to him. But the
fact remained that she was the only woman that he
ever sought, and the tongues of all the rest were busy
in consequence.

Page 84

As for Stella, she still told herself that she would
escape with her freedom. He would speak, she
was convinced, before she left. She even sometimes
told herself that after what had passed between them,
it was almost incumbent upon him to speak. But
she believed that he would accept her refusal philosophically,
possibly even with relief. She restrained herself
forcibly from dwelling upon the thought of him.
Again and again she reminded herself that he trod
the way of ambition. His heart was given to his
work, and a man may not serve two masters. He
cared for her, probably, but in a calm, judicial fashion
that could never satisfy her. If she married
him she would come second—­and a very poor
second—­to his profession. And so she
did not mean to marry him. And so she checked
the fevered memory of passionate kisses that had burned
her to the soul, of arms that had clasped and held
her by a force colossal. That had been only the
primitive man in him, escaped for the moment beyond
his control—­the primitive man which he had
well-nigh succeeded in stifling with the bonds of
his servitude. Had he not told her that he would
have given all he had to forget that single wild lapse
into savagery? She was sure that he despised himself
for it. He would never for an instant suffer
such an impulse again. He did not really love
her. It was not in him to love any woman.
He would make her a formal offer of marriage, and
when she had refused him he would dismiss the matter
from his mind and return to his work undisturbed.

So she schooled herself to make her plans, leaving
him out of the reckoning, telling herself ever that
her newly restored freedom was too dear ever to be
sacrificed again. In Mrs. Ralston’s company
she attended some of the social gatherings of the
station, but she took no keen pleasure in them.
She disliked Lady Harriet, she distrusted Mrs. Burton,
and more often than not she remained away. The
coming Christmas festivities did not attract her.
She held aloof till Tommy who was in the thick of
everything suddenly and vehemently demanded her presence.

“It’s ridiculous to be so stand-offish,”
he maintained. “Don’t let ’em
think you’re afraid of ’em! Come anyway
to the moonlight picnic at Khanmulla on Christmas
Eve! It’s going to be no end of a game.”

Stella smiled a little. “Do you know, Tommy,
I think I’d rather go to bed?”

“Absurd!” declared Tommy. “You
used to be much more sporting.”

“I wasn’t a widow in those days,”
Stella said.

“What rot! What damn’ rot!”
cried Tommy wrathfully.

“There is no altering the fact,” said
Stella.

He left her, fuming.

That evening as she sat on the Club verandah with
Mrs. Ralston, watching some tennis, Monck came up
behind her and stood against the wall smoking a cigarette.

He did not speak for some time and after a word of
greeting Stella turned back to the play. But
presently Mrs. Ralston got up and went away, and after
an interval Monck came silently forward and took the
vacant seat.

Page 85

Tommy was among the players. His play was always
either surprisingly brilliant or amazingly bad, and
on this particular evening he was winning all the
honours.

Stella was joining in the general applause after a
particularly fine stroke when suddenly Monck’s
voice spoke at her side.

“Why don’t you take a hand sometimes instead
of always looking on?”

The question surprised her. She glanced at him
in momentary embarrassment, met his straight look,
and smiled.

“Perhaps I am lazy.”

“That isn’t the reason,” he said.
“Why do you lead a hermit’s life?
Do you follow your own inclination in so doing?
Or are you merely proving yourself a slave to an unwritten
law?”

His voice was curt; it held mastery. But yet
she could not resent it, for behind it was a masked
kindness which deprived it of offence.

She decided to treat the question lightly. “Perhaps
a little of both,” she said. “Besides,
it seems scarcely worth while to try to get into the
swim now when I am leaving so soon.”

He made an abrupt movement which seemed to denote
suppressed impatience. “You are too young
to say that,” he said.

She laughed a little. “I don’t feel
young. I think life moves faster in tropical
countries. I have lived years since I have been
here, and I am glad of a rest.”

He was silent for a space; then again abruptly he
returned to the charge. “You’re not
going to waste all the best of your life over a memory,
are you? The finest man in the world isn’t
worth that.”

She felt the colour rise in her face as she made reply.
“I hope I am not going to waste my life at all.
Is it a waste not to spend it in a feverish round
of social pleasures? If so, I do not think you
are in a position to condemn me.”

She saw his brief smile for an instant. “My
life is occupied with other things,” he said.
“But I don’t lead a hermit’s existence.
I am going to the officers’ picnic at Khanmulla
on the twenty-fourth for instance.”

“Being a case of ’Needs must’,”
suggested Stella.

“By no means.” Monck leaned forward
to light another cigarette. “I am going
for a particular purpose. If that purpose is not
fulfilled—­” he paused a moment and
she felt his eyes upon her again—­“I
shall come straight back,” he ended with a certain
doggedness of determination that did not escape her.

Stella’s gaze was fixed upon the court below
her and she kept it there, but she saw nothing of
the game. Her heart was beating oddly in leaps
and jerks. She felt curiously as if she were under
the influence of an electric battery; every nerve
and every vein seemed to be tingling.

He had not asked a question, yet she felt that in
some fashion he had made it incumbent upon her to
speak in answer. In the silence that followed
his words she was aware of an insistence that would
not be denied. She tried to put it from her,
but could not. In the end, more than half against
her will, she yielded.

Page 86

“I suppose I shall have to go,” she said,
“if only to pacify Tommy.”

“A very good and sufficient reason,” commented
Monck enigmatically.

He lingered on beside her for a while, but nothing
further of an intimate nature passed between them.
She felt that he had gained his objective and would
say no more. The truce between them was to be
observed until the psychological moment arrived to
break it, and that moment would occur some time on
Christmas Eve in the moonlit solitudes of Khanmulla.

Later she reflected that perhaps it was as well to
go and get it over. She could not deny him his
opportunity, and it would not take long—­she
was sure it would not take long to convince him that
they were better as they were.

Had he been younger, less wedded to his work, less
the slave of his ambition, things might have been
different. Had she never been married to Ralph
Dacre, never known the bondage of those few strange
weeks, she might have been more ready to join her
life to his.

But Fate had intervened between them, and their paths
now lay apart. He realized it as well as she
did. He would not press her. Their eyes were
open, and if the oasis in the desert had seemed desirable
to either for a space, yet each knew that it was no
abiding-place.

Their appointed ways lay in the waste beyond, diverging
ever more and more, till presently even the greenness
of that oasis in which they had met together would
be no more to either than a half-forgotten dream.

CHAPTER X

THE SURRENDER

The moon was full on Christmas Eve. It shone
in such splendour that the whole world was transformed
into a fairyland of black and silver. Stella
stood on the verandah of the Green Bungalow looking
forth into the dazzling night with a tremor at her
heart. The glory of it was in a sense overwhelming.
It made her feel oddly impotent, almost afraid, as
if some great power menaced her. She had never
felt the ruthlessness of the East more strongly than
she felt it that night. But the drugged feeling
that had so possessed her in the mountains was wholly
absent from her now. She felt vividly alive,
almost painfully conscious of the quick blood pulsing
through her veins. She was aware of an intense
longing to escape even while the magic of the night
yet drew her irresistibly. Deep in her heart
there lurked an uncertainty which she could not face.
Up to that moment she had been barely aware of its
existence, but now she felt it stirring, and strangely
she was afraid. Was it the call of the East,
the wonder of the moonlight? Or was it some greater
thing yet, such as had never before entered into her
life? She could not say; but her face was still
firmly set towards the goal of liberty. Whatever
was in store for her, she meant to extricate herself.
She meant to cling to her freedom at all costs.
When next she stood upon that verandah, the ordeal
she had begun to dread so needlessly, so unreasonably,
would be over, and she would have emerged triumphant.

Page 87

So she told herself, even while the shiver of apprehension
which she could not control went through her, causing
her to draw her wrap more closely about her though
there was nought but a pleasant coolness in the soft
air that blew across the plain.

She and Tommy were to drive with the Ralstons to the
ruined palace in the jungle of Khanmulla where the
picnic was to take place. She had never seen
it, but had heard it described as the most romantic
spot in Markestan. It had been the site of a
fierce battle in some bye-gone age, and its glories
had departed. For centuries it had lain deserted
and crumbling. Yet some of its ancient beauty
remained. Its marble floors and walls of carved
stone were not utterly obliterated though only owls
and flying-foxes made it their dwelling-place.
Natives regarded it with superstitious awe and seldom
approached it. But Europeans all looked upon
it as the most beautiful corner within reach, and had
it been nearer to Kurrumpore, it would have been a
far more frequented playground than it was.

The hoot of a motor-horn broke suddenly upon the silence,
and Stella started. It was the horn of Major
Ralston’s little two-seater; she knew it well.
But they had not proposed using it that night.
She and Tommy were to accompany them in a waggonette.
The crunching of wheels and throb of the engine at
the gate told her it was stopping. Then the Ralstons
had altered their plans, unless—­Something
suddenly leapt up within her. She was conscious
of a curious constriction at the throat, a sense of
suffocation. The fuss and worry of the engine
died down into silence, and in a moment there came
the sound of a man’s feet entering the compound.
Standing motionless, with hands clenched against her
sides, she gazed forth. A tall, straight figure
was coming towards her between the whispering tamarisks.
It was not Major Ralston. He walked with a slouch,
and this man’s gait was firm and purposeful.
He came up to the verandah-steps with unfaltering
determination. He was looking full at her, and
she knew that she stood revealed in the marvellous
Indian moonlight. He mounted the steps with the
same absolute self-assurance that yet held nought
of arrogance. His face remained in shadow, but
she did not need to see it. The reason of his
coming was proclaimed in every line, in every calm,
unwavering movement.

He came to her, and she waited there in the merciless
moonlight; for she had no choice.

“I have come for you,” he said.

The words were brief, but they thrilled her strangely.
Her eyes fluttered and refused to meet his look.

“The Ralstons are taking us,” she said.

Her tone was cold, her bearing aloof. She was
striving for self-control. He could not have
known of the tumult within her. Yet he smiled.
“They are taking Tommy,” he said.

She heard the stubborn note in his voice and suddenly
and completely the power to resist went from her.

Page 88

She held out her hand to him with a curious gesture
of appeal, “Captain Monck, if I come with you—­”

His fingers closed about her own. “If?”
he said.

She made a rather piteous attempt to laugh. “Really
I don’t want to,” she said.

“Really?” said Monck. He drew a little
nearer to her, still holding her hand. His grasp
was firm and strong. “Really?” he
said again.

She stood in silence, for she could not give him any
answer.

He waited for a moment or two; then, “Stella,”
he said, “are you afraid of me?”

She shook her head. Her lips had begun to tremble
inexplicably. “No—­no,”
she said.

“What then?” He spoke with a gentleness
that she had never heard from him before. “Of
yourself?”

She turned her face away from him. “I am
afraid—­of life,” she told him brokenly.
“It is like a great Wheel—­a vast machinery.
I have been caught in it once—­caught and
crushed. Oh can’t you understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

Again for a space he was silent, his hand yet holding
hers. There was subtle comfort in his grasp.
It held protection.

“And so you want to run away from it?”
he said at length. “Do you think that’s
going to help you?”

She choked back a sob. “I don’t know.
I have no judgment. I don’t trust myself.”

“You believe in sincerity?” he said.
“In being true to yourself?” Then, as
she winced, “No, I don’t want to go over
old ground. We are talking of present things.
I’m not going to pester you, not going to ask
you to marry me even—­” again she
was aware of his smile though his speech sounded grim—­“until
you have honestly answered the question that you are
trying to shirk. Perhaps you won’t thank
me for reminding you a second time of a conversation
that you and I once had on this very spot, but I must.
I told you that I had been waiting for my turn.
And you told me that I had come—­too late.”

He paused, but she did not speak. She was trembling
from head to foot.

He leaned towards her. “Stella, I’m
not such a fool as to make the same mistake twice
over. I’m not going to miss my turn a second
time. I loved you then—­though I had
never flattered myself that I had a chance. And
my love isn’t the kind that burns and goes out.”
His voice suddenly quivered. “I don’t
know whether you have any use for it. You have
been too discreet and cautious to betray yourself.
Your heart has been a closed book to me. But
to-night—­I am going to open that book.
I have the right, and you can’t deny it to me.
If you were queen of the whole earth I should still
have the right, because I love you, to ask you—­as
I ask you now—­have you any love for me?
There! I have done it. If you can tell me
honestly that I am nothing to you, that is the end.
But if not—­if not—­” again
she heard a deep vibration in his voice—­“then
don’t be afraid—­in the name of Heaven!
Marriage with me would not mean slavery.”

Page 89

He stopped abruptly and turned from her. From
the room behind them there came a cheery hail.
Tommy came tramping through.

“Hullo, old chap! You, is it? Has
Stella been attending to your comfort? Have you
had a drink?”

Monck’s answer had a sardonic note, “Your
sister has been kindness itself—­as she
always is. No drinks for me, thanks. I am
just off in Ralston’s car to Khanmulla.”
He turned deliberately back again to Stella.
“Will you come with me? Or will you go with
Tommy—­and the Ralstons?”

There was neither anxiety nor persuasion in his voice.
Tommy frowned over its utter lack of emotion.
He did not think his friend was playing his cards
well.

But to Stella that coolness had a different meaning.
It stirred her to an impulse more headlong than at
the moment she realized.

“I will come with you,” she said.

“Good!” said Monck simply, and stood back
for her to pass.

She went by him without a glance. She felt as
if the wild throbbing of her heart would choke her.
He had spoken in such a fashion as she had dreamed
that he could ever speak. He had spoken and she
had not sent him away. That was the thought that
most disturbed her. Till that moment it had seemed
a comparatively easy thing to do. Her course had
been clear. But he had appealed to that within
her which could not be ignored. He had appealed
to the inner truth of her nature, and she could not
close her ears to that. He asked her only to
be true to herself. He had taken his stand on
higher ground than that on which she stood. He
had not urged any plea on his own behalf. He
had only urged her to be honest. And in so doing
he had laid bare that ancient mistake of hers that
had devastated her life. He did not desire her
upon the same terms as those upon which she had bestowed
herself upon Ralph Dacre. He made that abundantly
clear. He did not ask her to subordinate her happiness
to his. He only asked for straight dealing from
her, and she knew that he asked it as much for her
sake as for his own. He would not seek to hold
her if she did not love him. That was the great
touchstone to which he had brought her, and she knew
that she must face the test. The mastery of his
love compelled her. As he had freely asserted,
he had the right—­just because he was an
honourable man and he loved her honourably.

But how far would that love of his carry him?
She longed to know. It was not the growth of
a brief hour’s passion. That at least she
knew. It would not burn and go out. It would
endure; somehow she realized that now past disputing.
But was it first and greatest with him? Were his
cherished career, his ambition, of small account beside
it? Was he willing to do sacrifice to it?
And if so, how great a sacrifice was he prepared to
offer?

She yearned to ask him as he sped her in silence through
the chequered moonlight of the Khanmulla jungle.
But some inner force restrained her. She feared
to break the spell.

Page 90

The road was deserted, just as it had been on that
dripping night when she had answered his summons to
Tommy’s sick bed. She recalled that wild
rush through the darkness, his grim strength, his determination.
The iron of his will had seemed to compass her then.
Was it the same to-night? Had her freedom already
been wrested from her? Was there to be no means
of escape?

Through the jungle solitudes there came the call of
an owl, weird and desolate and lonely. Something
in it pierced her with a curious pain. Was freedom
then everything? Did she truly love the silence
above all?

She drew her cloak closer about her. Was there
something of a chill in the atmosphere? Or was
it the chill of the desert beyond the oasis that awaited
her?

They emerged from the thickest part of the jungle
into a space of tangled shrubs that seemed fighting
with each other for possession of the way. The
road was rough, and Monck slackened speed.

“We shall have to leave the car,” he said.
“There is a track here that leads to the ruined
palace. It is only a hundred yards or so.
We shall have to do it on foot.”

They descended. The moonlight poured in a flood
all about them. They were alone.

Stella turned up the narrow path he indicated, but
in a moment he overtook her. “Let me go
first!” he said.

He passed her with the words and walked ahead, holding
the creepers back from her as she followed.

She suffered him silently, with a strange sense of
awe, almost as though she trod holy ground. But
the old feeling of trespass was wholly absent.
She had no fear of being cast forth from this place
that she was about to enter.

The path began to widen somewhat and to ascend.
In a few moments they came upon a crumbling stonewall
crossing it at right angles.

Monck paused. “One way leads to the palace,
the other to the temple,” he said. “Which
shall we take?”

Stella faced him in the moonlight. She thought
he looked stern. “Is not the picnic to
be at the palace?” she said.

“Yes.” He answered her without hesitation.
“You will find Lady Harriet and Co. there.
The temple on the other hand is probably deserted.”

“Ah!” His meaning flashed upon her.
She stood a second in indecision. Then “Is
it far?” she said.

She saw his faint smile for an instant. “A
very long way—­for you,” he said.

“I can come back?” she said.

“I shall not prevent you.” She heard
the smile in his voice, and something within her thrilled
in answer.

“Let us go then!” she said.

He turned without further words and led the way.

They entered the shadow of the jungle once more.
For a space the path ran beside the crumbling wall,
then it diverged from it, winding darkly into the
very heart of the jungle. Monck walked without
hesitation. He evidently knew the place well.

Page 91

They came at length upon a second clearing, smaller
than the first, and here in the centre of a moonlit
space there stood the ruined walls of a little native
temple or mausoleum.

A flight of worn, marble steps led to the dark arch
of the doorway. Monck stretched a hand to his
companion, and they ascended side by side. A
bubbling murmur of water came from within. It
seemed to fill the place with gurgling, gnomelike
laughter. They entered and Monck stood still.

For a space of many seconds he neither moved nor spoke.
It was almost as if he were waiting for some signal.
They looked forth into the moonlight they had left
through the cave-like opening. The air around
them was chill and dank. Somewhere in the darkness
behind them a frog croaked, and tiny feet scuttled
and scrambled for a few moments and then were still.

Again Stella shivered, drawing her cloak more closely
round her. “Why did you bring me to this
eerie place?” she said, speaking under her breath
involuntarily.

He stirred as if her words aroused him from a reverie.
“Are you afraid?” he said.

“I should be—–­ by myself,”
she made answer. “I don’t think I
like India at too close quarters. She is so mysterious
and so horribly ruthless.”

He passed over the last two sentences as though they
had not been uttered. “But you are not
afraid with me?” he said.

She quivered at something in his question. “I
am not sure,” she said. “I sometimes
think that you are rather ruthless too.”

“Do you know me well enough to say that?”
he said.

She tried to answer him lightly. “I ought
to by this time. I have had ample opportunity.”

“Yes,” he said rather bitterly. “But
you are prejudiced. You cling to a preconceived
idea. If you love me—­it is in spite
of yourself.”

Something in his voice hurt her like the cry of a
wounded thing. She made a quick, impulsive movement
towards him. “Oh, but that is not so!”
she said. “You don’t understand.
Please don’t think anything so—­so
hard of me!”

“Are you sure it is not so?” he said.
“Stella! Stella! Are you sure?”

The words pierced her afresh. She suddenly felt
that she could bear no more. “Oh, please!”
she said. “Oh, please!” and laid a
quivering hand upon his arm. “You are making
it very difficult for me. Don’t you realize
how much better it would be for your own sake not to
press me any further?”

“No!” he said; just the one word, spoken
doggedly, almost harshly. His hands were clenched
and rigid at his sides.

Almost instinctively she began to plead with him as
one who pleads for freedom. “Ah, but listen
a moment! You have your life to live. Your
career means very much to you. Marriage means
hindrance to a man like you. Marriage means loitering
by the way. And there is no time to loiter.
You have taken up a big thing, and you must carry it
through. You must put every ounce of yourself
into it. You must work like a galley slave.
If you don’t you will be—­a failure.”

Page 92

“Who told you that?” he demanded.

She met the fierceness of his eyes unflinchingly.
“I know it. Everyone knows it. You
have given yourself heart and soul to India, to the
Empire. Nothing else counts—­or ever
can count now—­in the same way. It
is quite right that it should be so. You are a
builder, and you must follow your profession.
You will follow it to the end. And you will do
great things,—­immortal things.”
Her voice shook a little. “But you must
keep free from all hampering burdens, all private cares.
Above all, you must not think of marriage with a woman
whose chief desire is to escape from India and all
that India means, whose sympathies are utterly alien
from her, and whose youth has died a violent death
at her hands. Oh, don’t you see the madness
of it? Surely you must see!”

A quiver of deep feeling ran through her words.
She had not meant to go so far, but she was driven,
driven by a force that would not be denied. She
wanted him to see the matter with her eyes. Somehow
that seemed essential now. Things had gone so
far between them. It was intolerable now that
he should misunderstand.

But as she ceased to speak, she abruptly realized
that the effect of her words was other than she intended.
He had listened to her with a rigid patience, but
as her words went into silence it seemed as if the
iron will by which till then he had held himself in
check had suddenly snapped.

He stood for a second or two longer with an odd smile
on his face and that in his eyes which startled her
into a momentary feeling that was almost panic; then
with a single, swift movement he bent and caught her
to him.

“And you think that counts!” he said.
“You think that anything on earth counts—­but
this!”

His lips were upon hers as he ended, stopping all
protest, all utterance. He kissed her hotly,
fiercely, holding her so pressed that above the wild
throbbing of her own heart she felt the deep, strong
beat of his. His action was passionate and overwhelming.
She would have withstood him, but she could not; and
there was that within her that rejoiced, that exulted,
because she could not. Yet as at last his lips
left hers, she turned her face aside, hiding it from
him that he might not see how completely he had triumphed.

He laughed a little above her bent head; he did not
need to see. “Stella, you and I have got
to sink or swim together. If you won’t have
success with me, then I will share your failure.”

She quivered at his words; she was clinging to him
almost without knowing it. “Oh, no!
Oh, no!” she said.

His hand came gently upwards and lay upon her head.
“My dear, that rests with you. I have sworn
that marriage to me shall not mean bondage. If
India is any obstacle between us, India will go.”

“Oh, no!” she said again. “No,
Everard! No!”

He bent his face to hers. His lips were on her
hair. “You love me, Stella,” he said.

Page 93

She was silent, her breathing short, spasmodic, difficult.

His cheek pressed her forehead. “Why not
own it?” he said softly. “Is it—­so
hard?”

She lifted her face swiftly; her arms clasped his
neck. “And if—­if I do,—­will
you let me go?” she asked him tremulously.

The smile still hovered about his lips. “No,”
he said.

“It is madness,” she pleaded desperately.

“It is—­Kismet,” he made answer,
and took her face between his hands looking deeply,
steadily, into her eyes. “Your life is bound
up with mine. You know it. Stella, you know
it.”

She uttered a sob that yet was half laughter.
“I have done my best,” she said.
“Why are you so—­so merciless?”

“You surrender?” he said.

She gave herself to the drawing of his hands.
“Have I any choice?”

“Not if you are honest,” he said.

“Ah!” She coloured rather painfully.
“I have at least been honest in trying to keep
you from this—­this big mistake. I know
you will repent it. When this—­fever
is past, you will regret—­oh, so bitterly.”

He set his jaw and all the grim strength of the man
was suddenly apparent. “Shall I tell you
the secret of success?” he said abruptly.
“It is just never to look back. It is the
secret of happiness also, if people only realized
it. If you want to make the best of life, you’ve
got to look ahead. I’m going to make you
do that, Stella. You’ve been sitting mourning
by the wayside long enough.”

She smiled almost in spite of herself, for the note
of mastery in his voice was inexplicably sweet.
“I’ve thought that myself,” she said.
“But I’m not going to let you patch up
my life with yours. If this must be—­and
you are sure—­you are sure that it must?”

“I have spoken,” he said.

She faced him resolutely. “Then India shall
have us both. Now I have spoken too.”

His face changed. The grimness became eagerness.
“Stella, do you mean that?” he said.
“It’s a big sacrifice—­too big
for you.”

Her eyes were shining as stars shine through a mist.
She was drawing his head downwards that her lips might
reach his. “Oh, my darling,” she
said, and the thrill of love triumphant was in her
words, “nothing would be—­too big.
It simply ceases to be a sacrifice—­if it
is done—­for your dear sake.”

Her lips met his upon the words, and in that kiss
she gave him all she had. It was the rich bestowal
of a woman’s full treasury, than which it may
be there is nought greater on earth.

PART III

CHAPTER I

BLUEBEARD’S CHAMBER

Bhulwana in early spring! Bhulwana of the singing
birds and darting squirrels! Bhulwana of the
pines!

Stella stood in the green compound of the bungalow
known as The Grand Stand, gazing down upon the green
racecourse with eyes that dreamed.

Page 94

The evening was drawing near. They had arrived
but a few minutes before in Major Ralston’s
car, and the journey had taken the whole day.
Her mind went back to that early hour almost in the
dawning when she and Everard Monck had knelt together
before the altar of the little English Church at Kurrumpore
and been pronounced man and wife. Mrs. Ralston
and Tommy alone had attended the wedding. The
hour had been kept a strict secret from all besides.
And they had gone straight forth into the early sunlight
of the new day and sped away into the morning, rejoicing.
A blue jay had laughed after them at starting, and
a blue jay was laughing now in the budding acacia
by the gate. There seemed a mocking note in its
laughter, but it held gaiety as well. Listening
to it, she forgot all the weary miles of desert through
which they had travelled. The world was fair,
very fair, here at Bhulwana. And they were alone.

There fell a step on the grass behind her; she thrilled
and turned. He came and put his arm around her.

“Do you think you can stand seven days of it?”
he said.

She leaned her head against him. “I want
to catch every moment of them and hold it fast.
How shall we make the time pass slowly?”

He smiled at the question. “Do you know,
I was afraid this place wouldn’t appeal to you?”

Her hand sought and closed upon his. “Ah,
why not?” she said.

He did not answer her. Only, with his face bent
down to hers, he said, “The past is past then?”

“For ever,” she made swift reply.
“But I have always loved Bhulwana—­even
in my sad times. Ah, listen! That is a koil!”

They listened to the bird’s flutelike piping,
standing closely linked in the shadow of a little
group of pines. In the bungalow behind them Peter
the Great was decking the table for their wedding-feast.
The scent of white roses was in the air, languorous,
exquisite.

The blue jay laughed again in the acacia by the gate,
laughed and flew away. “Good riddance!”
said Monck.

“Don’t you like him?” said Stella.

“I’m not particularly keen on being jeered
at,” he answered.

She laughed at him in her turn. “I never
thought you cared a single anna what any one
thought of you.”

He smiled. “Perhaps I have got more sensitive
since I knew you.”

She lifted her lips to his with a sudden movement.
“I am like that too,
Everard. I care—­terribly now.”

He kissed her, and his kiss was passionate. “No
one shall ever think anything but good of you, my
Stella,” he said.

She clung to him. “Ah, but the outside
world doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It is only we ourselves, and our secret, innermost
hearts that count. Everard, let us be more than
true to each other! Let us be quite, quite open—­always!”

He held her fast, but he made no answer to her appeal.

Her eyes sought his. “That is possible,
isn’t it?” she pleaded. “My
heart is open to you. There is not a single corner
of it that you may not enter.”

Page 95

His arms clasped her closer. “I know,”
he said. “I know. But you mustn’t
be hurt or sorry if I cannot say the same. My
life is a more complex affair than yours, remember.”

“Ah! That is India!” she said.
“But let me share that part too! Let me
be a partner in all! I can be as secret as the
wiliest Oriental of them all. I would so love
to be trusted. It would make me so proud!”

He kissed her again. “You might be very
much the reverse sometimes,” he said, “if
you knew some of the secrets I had to keep. India
is India, and she can be very lurid upon occasion.
There is only one way of treating her then; but I
am not going to let you into any unpleasant secrets.
That is Bluebeard’s Chamber, and you have got
to stay outside.”

She made a small but vehement gesture in his arms.
“I hate India!” she said. “She
dominates you like—­like—­”

“Like what?” he said.

She hid her face from him. “Like a horrible
mistress,” she whispered.

“Stella!” he said.

She throbbed in his hold. “I had to say
it. Are you angry with me?”

“No,” he said.

“But you don’t like me for it all the
same.” Her voice came muffled from his
shoulder. “You don’t realize—­very
likely you never will—­how near the truth
it is.”

He was silent, but in the silence his hold tightened
upon her till it was almost a grip.

She turned her face up again at last. “I
told you it was madness to marry me,” she said
tremulously. “I told you you would repent.”

He looked at her with a strange smile. “And
I told you it was—­Kismet,” he said.
“You did it because it was written that you should.
For better for worse—­” his voice
vibrated—­“you and I are bound by the
same Fate. It was inevitable, and there can be
no repentance, just as there can be no turning back.
But you needn’t hate India on that account.
I have told you that I will give her up for your sake,
and that stands. But I will not give you up for
India—­or for any other power on earth.
Now are you satisfied?”

Her face quivered at the question. “It
is—­more than I deserve,” she said.
“You shall give up nothing for me.”

He put his hand upon her forehead. “Stella,
will you give her a trial? Give her a year!
Possibly by that time I may tell you more than I am
able to tell you now. I don’t know if you
would welcome it, but there are always a chosen few
to whom success comes. I may be one of the few.
I have a strong belief in my own particular star.
Again I may fail. If I fail, I swear I will give
her up. I will start again at some new job.
But will you be patient for a year? Will you,
my darling, let me prove myself? I only ask—­one
year.”

Her eyes were full of tears. “Everard!
You make me feel—­ashamed,” she said.
“I won’t—­won’t—­be
a drag on you, spoil your career! You must forgive
me for being jealous. It is because I love you
so. But I know it is a selfish form of love,
and I won’t give way to it. I will never
separate you from the career you have chosen.
I only wish I could be a help to you.”

Page 96

“You can only help me by being patient—­just
at present,” he said.

“And not asking tiresome questions!” She
smiled at him though her tears had overflowed.
“But oh, you won’t take risks, will you?
Not unnecessary risks? It is so terrible to think
of you in danger—­to think—­to
think of that horrible deformed creature who sent—­Ralph—­”
She broke off shuddering and clinging to him.
It was the first time she had ever spoken of her first
husband by name to him.

He dried the tears upon her cheeks. “My
own girl, you needn’t be afraid,” he said,
and though his words were kind she wondered at the
grimness of his voice. “I am not the sort
of person to be disposed of in that way. Shall
we talk of something less agitating? I can’t
have you crying on our wedding-night.”

His tone was repressive. She was conscious of
a chill. Yet it was a relief to turn from the
subject, for she recognized that there was small satisfaction
to be derived therefrom. The sun was setting moreover,
and it was growing cold. She let him lead her
back into the bungalow, and they presently sat down
at the table that Peter had prepared with so much
solicitude.

Later they lingered for awhile on the verandah, watching
the blazing stars, till it came to Monck that his
bride was nearly dropping with weariness and then
he would not suffer her to remain any longer.

When she had gone within, he lit a pipe and wandered
out alone into the starlight, following the deserted
road that led to the Rajah’s summer palace.

He paced along slowly with bent head, deep in thought.
At the great marble gateway that led into the palace-garden
he paused and stood for a space in frowning contemplation.
A small wind had sprung up and moaned among the cypress-trees
that overlooked the high wall. He seemed to be
listening to it. Or was it to the hoot of an owl
that came up from the valley?

Finally he drew near and deliberately tapped the ashes
from his half-smoked pipe upon the shining marble.
The embers smouldered and went out. A black stain
remained upon the dazzling white surface of the stone
column. He looked at it for a moment or two, then
turned and retraced his steps with grim precision.

When he reached the bungalow, he turned into the room
in which they had dined; and sat down to write.

Time passed, but he took no note of it. It was
past midnight ere he thrust his papers together at
length and rose to go.

The main passage of the bungalow was bright with moonlight
as he traversed it. A crouching figure rose up
from a shadowed doorway at his approach. Peter
the Great looked at him with reproach in his eyes.

Monck stopped short. He accosted the man in his
own language, but Peter made answer in the careful
English that was his pride.

“Even so, sahib, I watch over my mem-sahib
until you come to her. I keep her safe by night
as well as by day. I am her servant.”

Page 97

He stood back with dignity that Monck might pass,
but Monck stood still. He looked at Peter with
a level scrutiny for a few moments. Then:
“It is enough,” he said, with brief decision.
“When I am not with your mem-sahib, I
look to you to guard her.”

Peter made his stately salaam. Without
further words, he conveyed the fact that without his
permission no man might enter the room behind him
and live.

Very softly Monck turned the handle of the door and
passed within, leaving him alone in the moonlight.

CHAPTER II

EVIL TIDINGS

They walked on the following morning over the pine-clad
hill and down into the valley beyond, a place of running
streams and fresh spring verdure. Stella revelled
in its sweetness. It made her think of Home.

“You haven’t told me anything about your
brother,” she said, as they sat together on
a grey boulder and basked in the sunshine.

“Haven’t I?” Monck spoke meditatively.
“I’ve got a photograph of him somewhere.
You must see it. You’ll like my brother,”
he added, with a smile. “He isn’t
a bit like me.”

She laughed. “That’s a recommendation
certainly. But tell me what he is like!
I want to know.”

Monck considered. “He is a short, thick-set
chap, stout and red, rather like a comedian in face.
I think he appreciates a joke more than any one I
know.”

“He sounds a dear!” said Stella; and added
with a gay side-glance, “and certainly not in
the least like you. Have you written yet to break
the news of your very rash marriage?”

“Yes, I wrote two days ago. He will probably
cable his blessing. That is the sort of chap
he is.”

“It will be rather a shock for him,” Stella
observed. “You had no idea of changing
your state when you saw him last summer.”

There fell a somewhat abrupt silence. Monck was
filling his pipe and the process seemed to engross
all his thoughts. Finally, rather suddenly, he
spoke. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t
see him last summer.”

“You didn’t see him!” Stella opened
her eyes wide. “Not when you went Home?”

“I didn’t go Home.” Monck’s
eyes were still fixed upon his pipe. “No
one knows that but you,” he said, “and
one other. That is the first secret out of Bluebeard’s
chamber that I have confided in you. Keep it close!”

Stella sat and gazed; but he would not meet her eyes.
“Tell me,” she said at last, “who
is the other? The Colonel?”

He shook his head. “No, not the Colonel,
You mustn’t ask questions, Stella, if I ever
expand at all. If you do, I shall shut up like
a clam, and you may get pinched in the process.”

She slipped her hand through his arm. “I
will remember,” she said. “Thank
you—­ever so much—­for telling
me. I will bury it very deep. No one shall
ever suspect it through me.”

“Thanks,” he said. He pressed her
hand, but he kept his eyes lowered. “I
know I can trust you. You won’t try to find
out the things I keep back.”

Page 98

“Oh, never!” she said. “Never!
I shall never try to pry into affairs of State.”

He smiled rather cynically. “That is a
very wise resolution,” he said. “I
shall tell Bernard that I have married the most discreet
woman in the Empire—­as well as the most
beautiful.”

“Did you marry her for her beauty or for her
discretion?” asked Stella.

“Neither,” he said.

“Are you sure?” She leaned her cheek against
his shoulder. “It’s no good pretending
with me you know, I can see through anything, detect
any disguise, so far as you are concerned.”

“Think so?” said Monck.

“Answer my question!” she said.

“I didn’t know you asked one.”
His voice was brusque; he pushed his pipe into his
mouth without looking at her.

She reached up and daringly removed it. “I
asked what you married me for,” she said.
“And you suck your horrid pipe and won’t
even look at me.”

His arm went round her. He looked down into her
eyes and she saw the fiery worship in his own.
For a moment its intensity almost frightened her.
It was like the red fire of a volcano rushing forth
upon her—­a fierce, unshackled force.
For a space he held her so, gazing at her; then suddenly
he crushed her to him, he kissed her burningly till
she felt as if caught and consumed by the flame.

“My God!” he said passionately. “Can
I put—­that—­into words?”

She clung to him, but she was trembling. There
was that about him at the moment that startled her.
She was in the presence of something terrible, something
she could not fathom. There was more than rapture
in his passion. It was poignant with a fierce
defiance that challenged all the world.

She lay against his breast in silence while the storm
that she had so unwittingly raised spent itself.
Then at last as his hold began to slacken she took
courage.

She laid her cheek against his hand. “Ah,
don’t love me too much at first, darling,”
she said. “Give me the love that lasts!”

“And you think my love will not last?”
he said, his voice low and very deep.

She softly kissed the hand she held. “No,
I didn’t say—­or mean—­that.
I believe it is the greatest thing that I shall ever
possess. But—­shall I tell you a secret?
There is something in it that frightens me—­even
though I glory in it.”

“My dear!” he said.

She raised her lips again to his. “Yes,
I know. That is foolish. But I don’t
know you yet, remember. I have never yet seen
you angry with me.”

“You never will,” he said.

“Yes, I shall.” Her eyes were gazing
into his, but they saw beyond. “There will
come a day when something will come between us.
It may be only a small thing, but it will not seem
small to you. And you will be angry because I
do not see with your eyes. And I think the very
greatness of your love will make it harder for us both.
You mustn’t worship me, Everard. I am only
human. And you will be so bitterly disappointed
afterwards when you discover my limitations.”

Page 99

“I will risk that,” he said.

“No. I don’t want you to take any
risks. If you set up an idol, and it falls, you
may be—­I think you are—­the kind
of man to be ruined by it.”

She spoke very earnestly, but his faint smile told
her that her words had failed to convince.

“Are you really afraid of all that?” he
asked curiously.

She caught her breath. “Yes, I am afraid.
I don’t think you know yourself, your strength,
or your weakness. You haven’t the least
idea what you would say or do—­or even feel—­if
you thought me unkind or unjust to you.”

“I should probably sulk,” he said.

She shook her head. “Oh, no! You would
explode—­sooner or later. And it would
be a very violent explosion. I wonder if you have
ever been really furious with any one you cared about—­with
Tommy for instance.”

“I have,” said Monck. “But
I don’t fancy you will get him to relate his
experiences. He survived it anyway.”

“You tell me!” she said.

He hesitated. “It’s rather a shame
to give the boy away. But there is nothing very
extraordinary in it. When Tommy first came out,
he felt the heat—­like lots of others.
He was thirsty, and he drank. He doesn’t
do it now. I don’t mind wagering that he
never will again. I stopped him.”

“Everard, how?” Stella was looking at
him with the keenest interest.

“Do you really want to know how?” he still
spoke with slight hesitation.

“Of course I do. I suppose you were very
angry with him?”

“I was—­very angry. I had reason
to be. He fell foul of me one night at the Club.
It doesn’t matter how he did it. He wasn’t
responsible in any case. But I had to act to
keep him out of hot water. I took him back to
my quarters. Dacre was away that night and I had
him to myself. I kept my temper with him at first—­till
he showed fight and tried to kick me. Then I
let him have it. I gave him a licking—­such
a licking as he never got at school. It sobered
him quite effectually, poor little beggar.”
An odd note of tenderness crept through the grimness
of Monck’s speech. “But I didn’t
stop then. He had to have his lesson and he had
it. When I had done with him, there was no kick
left in him. He was as limp as a wet rag.
But he was quite sober. And to the best of my
belief he has never been anything else from that day
to this. Of course it was all highly irregular,
but it saved a worse row in the end.” Monck’s
faint smile appeared. “He realized that.
In fact he was game enough to thank me for it in the
morning, and apologized like a gentleman for giving
so much trouble.”

“Oh, I’m glad he did that!” Stella
said, with shining eyes. “And that was
the beginning of your friendship?”

“Well, I had always liked him,” Monck
admitted. “But he didn’t like me
for a long time after. That thrashing stuck in
his mind. It was a pretty stiff one certainly.
He was always very polite to me, but he avoided me
like the plague. I think he was ashamed.
I left him alone till one day he got ill, and then
I went round to see if I could do anything. He
was pretty bad, and I stayed with him. We got
friendly afterwards.”

Page 100

“After you had saved his life,” Stella
said.

Monck laughed. “That sort of thing doesn’t
count in India. If it comes to that, you saved
mine. No, we came to an understanding, and we’ve
managed to hit it ever since.”

Stella got to her feet. “Were you very
brutal to him, Everard?”

He reached a brown hand to her as she stood.
“Of course I was. He deserved it too.
If a man makes a beast of himself he need never look
for mercy from me.”

She looked at him dubiously. “And if a
woman makes you angry—­” she said.

He got to his feet and put his arm about her shoulders.
“But I don’t treat women like that,”
he said, “not even—­my wife. I
have quite another sort of treatment for her.
It’s curious that you should credit me with
such a vindictive temperament. I don’t know
what I have done to deserve it.”

She leaned her head against him. “My darling,
forgive me! It is just my horrid, suspicious
nature.”

He pressed her to him. “You certainly don’t
know me very well yet,” he said.

They went back to the bungalow in the late afternoon,
walking hand in hand as children, supremely content.

The blue jay laughed at the gate as they entered,
and Monck looked up, “Jeer away, you son of
a satyr!” he said. “I was going to
shoot you, but I’ve changed my mind. We’re
all friends in this compartment.”

Stella squeezed his hand hard. “Everard,
I love you for that!” she said simply.
“Do you think we could make friends with the
monkeys too?”

“And the jackals and the scorpions and the dear
little karaits,” said Monck. “No
doubt we could if we lived long enough.”

“Don’t laugh at me!” she protested.
“I am quite in earnest. There are plenty
of things to love in India.”

“There’s India herself,” said Monck.

She looked at him with resolution shining in her eyes.
“You must teach me,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, my dear. If
you don’t feel the lure of her, then you are
not one of her chosen and I can never make you so.
She is either a goddess in her own right or the most
treacherous old she-devil who ever sat in a heathen
temple. She can be both. To love her, you
must be prepared to take her either way.”

They went up into the bungalow. Peter the Great
glided forward like a magnificent genie and presented
a scrap of paper on a salver to Monck.

He took it, opened it, frowned over it.

“The messenger arrived three hours ago, sahib.
He could not wait,” murmured Peter.

Monck’s frown deepened. He turned to Stella.
“Go and have tea, dear, and then rest!
Don’t wait for me! I must go round to the
Club and get on the telephone at once.”

The grimness of his face startled her. “To
Kurrumpore?” she asked quickly. “Is
there something wrong?”

“Not yet,” he said curtly. “Don’t
you worry! I shall be back as soon as possible.”

Page 101

“Let me come too!” she said.

He shook his head. “No. Go and rest!”

He was gone with the words, striding swiftly down
the path. As he passed out on to the road, he
broke into a run. She stood and listened to his
receding footsteps with foreboding in her heart.

“Tea is ready, my mem-sahib” said
Peter softly behind her.

She thanked him with a smile and went in.

He followed her and waited upon her with all a woman’s
solicitude.

For a while she suffered him in silence, then suddenly,
“Peter,” she said, “what was the
messenger like?”

Peter hesitated momentarily. Then, “He
was old, mem-sahib,” he said, “old
and ragged, not worthy of your august consideration.”

She turned in her chair. “Was he—­was
he anything like—­that—­that holy
man—­Peter, you know who I mean?” Her
face was deathly as she uttered the question.

“Let my mem-sahib be comforted!”
said Peter soothingly. “It was not the
holy man—­the bearer of evil tidings.”

“Ah!” The words sank down through her
heart like a stone dropped into a well. “But
I think the tidings were evil all the same. Did
he say what it was? But—­” as
a sudden memory shot across her, “I ought not
to ask. I wish—­I wish the captain—­sahib
would come back.”

She started up. Monck was returning. He
came up the compound like a man who has been beaten
in a race. His face was grey, his eyes terrible.

Stella went swiftly to the verandah-steps to meet
him. “Everard! What is it? Oh,
what is it?” she said.

He took her arm, turning her back. “Have
you had tea?” he said.

His voice was low, but absolutely steady. Its
deadly quietness made her tremble.

“I haven’t finished,” she said.
“I have been waiting for you.”

“You needn’t have done that,” he
said. “I won’t have any, Peter,”
he turned on the waiting servant, “get me some
brandy!”

He sat down, setting her free. But she remained
beside him, and after a moment laid her hand lightly
upon his shoulder, without words.

He reached up instantly, caught and held it in a grip
that almost made her wince. “Stella,”
he said, “it’s been a very short honeymoon,
but I’m afraid it’s over. I’ve
got to get back at once.”

“I am coming with you,” she said quickly.

He looked up at her with eyes that burned with a strange
intensity but he did not speak in answer.

An awful dread clutched her. She knelt swiftly
down beside him. “Everard, listen!
I don’t care what has happened or what is likely
to happen. My place is by your side—­and
nowhere else. I am coming with you. Nothing
on earth shall prevent me.”

Page 102

Her words were quick and vehement, her whole being
pulsated. She challenged his look with eyes of
shining resolution.

His arms were round her in a moment; he held her fast.
“My Stella! My wife!” he said.

She clung closely to him. “By your side,
I will face anything. You know it, darling.
I am not afraid.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “I
won’t leave you behind. I couldn’t
now. But a time will come when we shall have
to separate. We’ve got to face that.”

“Wait till it comes!” she whispered.
“It isn’t—­yet.”

He kissed her on the lips. “No, not yet,
thank heaven. You want to know what has happened.
I will tell you. Ermsted—­you know Ermsted—­was
shot in the jungle near Khanmulla this afternoon,
about half an hour ago.”

“Oh, Everard!” She started back in horror
and was struck afresh by the awful intentness of his
eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “And if I had
been here to receive that message, I could have prevented
it.”

“Oh, Everard!” she said again.

He went on doggedly. “I ought to have been
here. My agent knew I was in the place.
I ought to have stayed within reach. These warnings
might arrive at any time. I was a damned lunatic,
and Ermsted has paid the price.” He stopped,
and his look changed. “Poor girl! It’s
been a shock to you,” he said, “a beastly
awakening for us both.”

Stella was very pale. “I feel,” she
said slowly, “as if I were pursued by a remorseless
fate.”

“You?” he questioned. “This
had nothing to do with you.”

She leaned against him. “Wherever I go,
trouble follows. Haven’t you noticed it?
It seems as if—­as if—­whichever
way I turn—­a flaming sword is stretched
out, barring the way.” Her voice suddenly
quivered. “I know why,—­oh, yes,
I know why. It is because once—­like
the man without a wedding-garment, I found my way
into a forbidden paradise. They hurled me out,
Everard. I was flung into a desert of ashes.
And now—­now that I have dared to approach
by another way—­the sentence has gone forth
that wherever I pass, something shall die. That
dreadful man—­told me on the day that Ralph
was taken away from me—­that the Holy Ones
were angry. And—­my dear—­he
was right. I shall never be pardoned until I
have—­somehow—­expiated my sin.”

“Stella! Stella!” He broke in upon
her sharply. “You are talking wildly.
Your sin, as you call it, was at the most no more than
a bad mistake. Can’t you put it from you?—­get
above it? Have you no faith? I thought all
women had that.”

She looked at him strangely. “I wasn’t
brought up to believe in God,” she said.
“At least not personally, not intimately.
Were you?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Ah!” Her eyes widened a little.
“And you still believe in Him—­still
believe He really cares—­even when things
go hopelessly wrong?”

“Yes,” he said again. “I can’t
talk about Him. But I know He’s there.”

Page 103

She still regarded him with wonder. “Oh,
my dear,” she said finally, “are you behind
me, or a very, very long way in front?”

He smiled faintly, grimly. “Probably a
thousand miles behind,” he said. “But
I have been given long sight, that’s all.”

She rose to her feet with a sigh. “And
I,” she said very sadly, “am blind.”

Down by the gate the blue jay laughed again, laughed
and flew away.

CHAPTER III

THE BEAST OF PREY

In a darkened room Netta Ermsted lay, trembling and
unnerved. As usual in cases of adversity, Mrs.
Ralston had taken charge of her; but there was very
little that she could do. It was more a matter
for her husband’s skill than for hers, and he
could only prescribe absolute quiet. For Netta
was utterly broken. Since the fatal moment when
she had returned from a call in her ’rickshaw
to find Major Burton awaiting her with the news that
Ermsted had been shot on the jungle-road while riding
home from Khanmulla, she had been as one distraught.
They had restrained her almost forcibly from rushing
forth to fling herself upon his dead body, and now
that it was all over, now that the man who had loved
her and whom she had never loved was in his grave,
she lay prostrate, refusing all comfort.

Tessa, wide-eyed and speculative, was in the care
of Mrs. Burton, alternately quarrelling vigorously
with little Cedric Burton whose intellectual leanings
provoked her most ardent contempt, and teasing the
luckless Scooter out of sheer boredom till all the
animal’s ideas in life centred in a desperate
desire to escape.

It was Tessa to whom Stella’s pitying attention
was first drawn on the day after her return to The
Green Bungalow. Tommy, finding her raging in
the road like a little tiger-cat over some small contretemps
with Mrs. Burton, had lifted her on to his shoulders
and brought her back with him.

“Be good to the poor imp!” he muttered
to his sister. “Nobody wants her.”

Certainly Mrs, Burton did not. She passed her
on to Stella with her two-edged smile, and Tessa and
Scooter forthwith cheerfully took up their abode at
The Green Bungalow with whole-hearted satisfaction.

Stella experienced little difficulty in dealing with
the child. She found herself the object of the
most passionate admiration which went far towards
simplifying the problem of managing her. Tessa
adored her and followed her like her shadow whenever
she was not similarly engrossed with her beloved Tommy.
Of Monck she stood in considerable awe. He did
not take much notice of her. It seemed to Stella
that he had retired very deeply into his shell of
reserve during those days. Even with herself
he was reticent, monosyllabic, obviously absorbed in
matters of which she had no knowledge.

Page 104

But for her small worshipper she would have been both
lonely and anxious. For he was often absent,
sometimes for hours at a stretch wholly without warning,
giving no explanation upon his return. She asked
no questions. She schooled herself to patience.
She tried to be content with the close holding of
his arms when they were together and the certainty
that all the desire of his heart was for her alone.
But she could not wholly, drive away the conviction
that at the very gates of her paradise the sword she
dreaded had been turned against her. They were
back in the desert again, and the way to the tree of
life was barred.

Perhaps it was natural that she should turn to Tessa
for consolation and distraction. The child was
original in all her ways. Her ideas of death
were wholly devoid of tragedy, and she was too accustomed
to her father’s absence to feel any actual sense
of loss.

“Do you think Daddy likes Heaven?” she
said to Stella one day. “I hope Mother
will be quick and go there too. It would be better
for her than staying behind with the Rajah. I
always call him ‘the slithy tove.’
He is so narrow and wriggly. He wanted me to
kiss him once, but I wouldn’t. He looked
so—­so mischievous.” Tessa tossed
her golden-brown head. “Besides, I only
kiss white men.”

“Hear, hear!” said Tommy, who was cleaning
his pipe on the verandah. “You stick to
that, my child!”

“Mother said I was very silly,” said Tessa.
“She was quite cross. But the Rajah only
laughed in that nasty, slippy way he has and took her
cigarette away and smoked it himself. I hated
him for that,” ended Tessa with a little gleam
of the tiger-cat in her blue eyes. “It—­it
was a liberty.”

Tommy’s guffaw sounded from the verandah.
It went into a greeting of Monck who came up unexpectedly
at the moment and sat down on a wicker-chair to examine
a handful of papers. Stella, working within the
room, looked up swiftly at his coming, but if he had
so much as glanced in her direction he was fully engrossed
with the matter in hand ere she had time to observe
it. He had been out since early morning and she
had not seen him for several hours.

Tessa, who possessed at times an almost uncanny shrewdness,
left her and went to stand on one leg in the doorway.
“Most people,” she observed, “say
‘Hullo!’ to their wives when they come
in.”

“Very intelligent of ’em,” said
Tommy. “Do you think the Rajah does?”

“I don’t know,” said Tessa seriously.
“I went to the palace at Bhulwana once to see
them. But the Rajah wasn’t there. They
were very kind,” she added dispassionately,
“but rather silly. I don’t wonder
the Rajah likes white men’s wives best.”

“Oh, quite natural,” agreed Tommy.

“He gave Mother a beautiful ring with a diamond
in it,” went on Tessa, delighted to have secured
his attention and watching furtively for some sign
of interest from Monck also. “It was worth
hundreds and hundreds of pounds. That was the
last thing Daddy was cross about. He was cross.”

Page 105

“Why?” asked Tommy.

’"Cos he was jealous, I expect,” said
Tessa wisely. “I thought he was going to
give her a whipping. And I hid in his dressing-room
to see. Mother was awful frightened. She
went down on her knees to him. And he was just
going to do it. I know he was. And then he
came into the dressing-room and found me. And
so he whipped me instead.” Tessa ended
on a note of resentment.

“Served you jolly well right,” said Tommy.

“No, it didn’t,” said Tessa.
“He only did it ’cos Mother had made him
angry. It wasn’t a child’s whipping
at all. It was a grown-up’s whipping.
And he used a switch. And it hurt—­worse
than anything ever hurt before. That’s
why I didn’t mind when he went to Heaven the
other day. I hope I shan’t go there for
a long time yet. It isn’t nice to be whipped
like that. And I wasn’t going to say I was
sorry either. I knew that would make him crosser
than anything.”

“Poor chap!” said Tommy suddenly.

Tessa came a step nearer to him. “Ayah
says the man who did it will be hanged if they catch
him,” she said. “If it is the Rajah,
will you manage so as I can go and see? I should
like to.”

“Tessa!” exclaimed Stella.

Tessa turned flushed cheeks and shining eyes upon
her. “I would!” she declared stoutly.
“I would! There’s nothing wrong in
that. He’s a horrid man. It isn’t
wrong, is it, Captain Monck? But if he shot my
Daddy?” She went swiftly to Monck with the words
and leaned ingratiatingly against him. “You’d
kill a man yourself that did a thing like that, wouldn’t
you?”

“Very likely,” said Monck.

She gazed at him admiringly. “I expect
you’ve killed lots and lots of men, haven’t
you?” she said.

He smiled with a touch of grimness. “Do
you think I’m going to tell a scaramouch like
you?” he said.

“Everard!” Stella rose and came to the
window. “Do—­please—­make
her understand that people don’t murder each
other just whenever they feel like it—­even
in India!”

He raised his eyes to hers, and an odd sense of shock
went through her. It was as if in some fashion
he had deliberately made her aware of that secret
chamber which she might not enter. “I think
you would probably be more convincing on that point
than I should,” he said.

She gave a little shudder; she could not restrain
it. That look in his eyes reminded her of something,
something dreadful. What was it? Ah yes,
she remembered now. He had had that look on that
night of terror when he had first called her his wife,
when he had barred the window behind her and sworn
to slay any man who should come between them.

She turned aside and went in without another word.
India again! India the savage, the implacable,
the ruthless! She felt as a prisoner who battered
fruitlessly against an iron door.

Tessa’s inquisitive eyes followed her.
“She’s going to cry,” she said to
Monck.

Page 106

Tommy turned sharply upon his friend with accusation
in his glance, but the next instant he summoned Tessa
as if she had been a terrier and walked off into the
compound with the child capering at his side.

Monck sat for a moment or two looking straight before
him; then he packed together the papers in his hand
and stepped through the open window into the room
behind. It was empty.

He went through it without a pause, and turned along
the passage to the door of his wife’s room.
It stood half-open. He pushed it wider and entered.

She was standing by her dressing-table, but she turned
at his coming, turned and faced him.

He came straight to her and took her by the shoulders.
“What is the matter?” he said.

She met his direct look, but there was shrinking in
her eyes. “Everard,” she said, “there
are times when you make me afraid.”

“Why?” he said.

She could not put it into words. She made a piteous
gesture with her clasped hands.

His expression changed, subtly softening. “I
can’t always wear kid gloves, my Stella,”
he said. “When there is rough work to be
done, we have to strip to the waist sometimes to get
to it. It’s the only way to get a sane
grip on things.”

Her lips were quivering. “But you—­you
like it!” she said.

He smiled a little. “I plead guilty to
a sporting instinct,” he said.

“You hunt down murderers—­and call
it—­sport!” she said slowly.

“No, I call it justice.” He still
spoke gently though his face had hardened again.
“That child has a sense of justice, quite elementary,
but a true one. If I could get hold of the man
who killed Ermsted, I would cheerfully kill him with
my own hand—­unless I could be sure that
he would get his deserts from the Government who are
apt to be somewhat slack in such matters.”

Stella shivered again. “Do you know, Everard,
I can’t bear to hear you talk like that?
It is the untamed, savage part of you.”

He drew her to him. “Yes, the soldier part.
I know. I know quite well. But my dear,
do me the justice at least to believe that I am on
the side of right! I can’t do other than
talk generalities to you. You simply wouldn’t
understand. But there are some criminals who can
only be beaten with their own weapons, remember that.
Nicholson knew that—­and applied it.
I follow—­or try to follow—­in
Nicholson’s steps.”

She clung to him suddenly and closely. “Oh,
don’t—­don’t! This is another
age. We have advanced since then.”

“Have we?” he said sombrely. “And
do you think the India of to-day can be governed by
weakness any more successfully than the India of Nicholson’s
time? You have no idea what you say when you talk
like that. Ermsted is not the first Englishman
to be killed in this State. The Rajah of Markestan
is too wily a beast to go for the large game at the
outset, though—­probably—­the large
game is the only stuff he cares about. He knows
too well that there are eyes that watch perpetually,
and he won’t expose himself—­if he
can help it. The trouble is he doesn’t
always know where to look for the eyes that watch.”

Page 107

A certain exultation sounded in his voice, but the
next instant he bent and kissed her.

“Why do you dwell on these things? They
only trouble you. But I think you might remember
that since they exist, someone has to deal with them.”

He hesitated; then: “Ahmed Khan is either
a tiger or—­merely a jackal,” he said.
“I don’t know which at present. I
am taking his measure.”

She still held him closely. “Everard,”
her voice came low and breathless, “you think
he was responsible for Captain Ermsted’s death.
May he not have been also for—­for—­”

He checked her sharply before Ralph Dacre’s
name could leave her lips. “No. Put
that out of your mind for good! You have no reason
to suspect foul play where he was concerned.”

He spoke with such decision that she looked at him
in surprise. “I often have suspected it,”
she said.

“I know. But you have no reason for doing
so. I should try to forget it if I were you.
Let the past be past!”

It was evident that he would not discuss the matter,
and, wondering somewhat, she let it pass. The
bare mention of Dacre seemed to be unendurable to
him. But the suspicion which his words had started
remained in her mind, for it was beyond her power to
dismiss it. The conviction that he had met his
death by foul means was steadily gaining ground within
her, winding serpent-like ever more closely about her
shrinking heart.

Monck went his way, whether deeply disappointed or
not she knew not. But she realized that he would
not reopen the subject. He had made his explanation,
but—­and for this she honoured him—­he
would not seek to convince her against her will.
It was even possible that he preferred her to keep
her own judgment in the matter.

They dined at the Mansfields’ bungalow that
night, a festivity for which she felt small relish,
more especially as she knew that Mrs. Ralston would
not be present. To be received with icy ceremony
by Lady Harriet and sent in to dinner with Major Burton
was a state of affairs that must have dashed the highest
spirits. She tried to make the best of it, but
it was impossible to be entirely unaffected by the
depressing chill of the atmosphere. Conversation
turned upon Mrs. Ermsted, regarding whom the report
had gone forth that she was very seriously ill.
Lady Harriet sought to probe Stella upon the subject
and was plainly offended when she pleaded ignorance.
She also tried to extract Monck’s opinion of
poor Captain Ermsted’s murder. Had it been
committed by a mere budmash for the sake of
robbery, or did he consider that any political significance
was attached to it? Monck drily expressed the
opinion that something might be said for either theory.
But when Lady Harriet threw discretion to the winds
and desired to know if it were generally believed in
official circles that the Rajah was implicated, he
raised his brows in stern surprise and replied that
so far as his information went the Rajah was a loyal
servant of the Crown.

Page 108

Lady Harriet was snubbed, and she felt the effects
of it for the rest of the evening. Walking home
with her husband through the starlight later, Stella
laughed a little over the episode; but Monck was not
responsive. He seemed engrossed in thought.

He went with her to her room, and there bade her good-night,
observing that he had work to do and might be late.

“It is already late,” she said. “Don’t
be long! I shall only lie awake till you come.”

She laughed, but her lips were piteous. “Well,
don’t be long anyway!” she pleaded.
“Don’t forget I am waiting for you!”

“Forget!” he said. For an instant
his hold upon her was passionate. He kissed her
fiercely, blindly, even violently; then with a muttered
word of inarticulate apology he let her go.

She heard him stride away down the passage, and in
a few moments Peter came and very softly closed the
door. She knew that he was there on guard until
his master should return.

She sat down with a beating heart and leaned back
with closed eyes. A heavy sense of foreboding
oppressed her. She was very tired, but yet she
knew that sleep was far away. Just as once she
had felt a dread that was physical on behalf of Ralph
Dacre, so now she felt weighed down by suspense and
loneliness. Only now it was a thousand times magnified,
for this man was her world. She tried to picture
to herself what it would have meant to her had that
shot in the jungle slain him instead of Captain Ermsted.
But the bare thought was beyond endurance. Once
she could have borne it, but not now—­not
now! Once she could have denied her love and
fared forth alone into the desert. But he had
captured her, and now she was irrevocably his.
Her spirit pined almost unconsciously whenever he
was absent from her. Her body knew no rest without
him. From the moment of his leaving her, she
was ever secretly on fire for his return.

Had they been in England she knew that it would have
been otherwise. In a calm and temperate atmosphere
she could have attained a serene, unruffled happiness.
But India, fevered and pitiless, held her in scorching
grip. She dwelt as it were on the edge of a roaring
furnace that consumed some victims every day.
Her life was strung up to a pitch that frightened
her. The very intensity of the love that Everard
Monck had practically forced into being within her
was almost more than she could bear. It hurt
her like the searing of a flame, and yet in the hurt
there was rapture. For the icy blast of the desert
could never reach her now. Unless—­unless—­ah,
was there not a flaming sword still threatening her
wherever she pitched her camp? Surround herself
as she would with the magic essences of love, did
not the vengeance await her—­even now—­even
now? Could she ever count herself safe so long
as she remained in this land of treachery and terrible
vengeance? Could there ever be any peace so near
to the burning fiery furnace?

Page 109

Slowly the night wore on. The air blew in cool
and pure with a soft whispering of spring and the
brief splendour of the rose-time. The howl of
a prowling jackal came now and then to her ears, making
her shiver with the memory of Monck’s words.
Away in the jungle the owls were calling upon notes
that sounded like weird cries for help.

Once or twice she heard a shuffling movement outside
the door and knew that Peter was still on guard.
She wondered if he ever slept. She wondered if
Tommy had returned. He often dropped into the
Club on his way back, and sometimes stayed late.
Then, realizing how late it was, she came to the conclusion
that she must have dozed in her chair.

She got up with a sense of being weighted in every
limb, and began to undress. Everard would be
vexed if he returned and found her still up.
Not that she expected him to return for a long time.
His absence lasted sometimes till the night was nearly
over.

She never questioned him regarding it, and he never
told her anything. Dacre’s revelation on
that night so long ago had never left her memory.
He was engaged upon secret affairs. Possibly he
was down in the native quarter, disguised as a native,
carrying his life in his hand. He had a friend
in the bazaar, she knew; a man she had never seen,
but whose shop he had once pointed out to her though
he would not suffer her—­and indeed she
had no desire—­to enter. This man—­Rustam
Karin—­was a dealer in native charms and
trinkets. The business was mainly conducted by
a youth of obsequious and insincere demeanour called
Hafiz. The latter she knew and instinctively
disliked, but her feeling for the unknown master was
one of more active aversion. In the depths of
that dark native stall she pictured him, a watcher,
furtive and avaricious, a man who lent himself and
his shrewd and covetous brain to a Government he probably
despised as alien.

Tommy had once described the man to her and her conception
of him was a perfectly clear one. He was black-bearded
and an opium-smoker, and she hated to think of Everard
as in any sense allied with him. Dark, treacherous,
and terrible, he loomed in her imagination. He
represented India and all her subtleties. He
was a serpent underfoot, a knife in the dark, an evil
dream.

She could not have said why the personality of a man
she did not know so affected her, save that she believed
that all Monck’s secret expeditions were conceived
in the gloom of that stall she had never entered in
the heart of the native bazaar. The man was in
Monck’s confidence. Perhaps, being a woman,
that hurt her also. For though she recognized—­as
in the case of that native lair down in the bazaar—­that
it were better never to set foot in that secret chamber,
yet she resented the thought that any other should
have free access to it. She was beginning to regard
that part of Monck’s life with a dread that verged
upon horror—­a feeling which her very love
for the man but served to intensify. She was
as one clinging desperately to a treasure which might
at any moment be wrested from her.

Page 110

Stiffly and wearily she undressed. Tommy must
surely have returned ages ago, though probably late,
or he would have come to bid her good-night.
Why did not Everard return?

At the last she extinguished her light and went to
the window to gaze wistfully out across the verandah.
That secret whispering—­the stirring of
a thousand unseen things—­was abroad in the
night. The air was soft and scented with a fragrance
intangible but wholly sweet. India, stretched
out beneath the glittering stars, stirred with half-opened
eyes, and smiled. Stella thought she heard the
flutter of her robe.

Then again the mystery of the night was rent by the
cry of some beast of prey, and in a second the magic
was gone. The shadows were full of evil.
She drew back with swift, involuntary shrinking; and
as she did so, she heard the dreadful answering cry
of the prey that had been seized.

For a few palpitating moments she leaned against the
wall feeling physically sick. And as she leaned,
there passed before her inner vision the memory of
that figure which she had seen upon the verandah on
that terrible night when Everard had been stricken
with fever. The look in her husband’s eyes
that day had brought it back to her, and now like a
flashlight it leapt from point to point of her brain,
revealing, illuminating.

That figure on the verandah and the unknown man of
the bazaar were one. It was Rustam Karin whom
she had seen that night—­Rustam Karin, Everard’s
trusted friend and ally—­the Rajah’s
tool also though Everard would never have it so—­and
(she was certain of it now with that certainty which
is somehow all the greater because without proof) this
was the man who had followed Ralph Dacre to Kashmir
and lured him to his death. This was the beast
of prey who when the time was ripe would destroy Everard
Monck also.

CHAPTER IV

THE FLAMING SWORD

The conviction which came upon Stella on that night
of chequered starlight was one which no amount of
sane reasoning could shake. She made no attempt
to reopen the subject with Everard, recognizing fully
the futility of such a course; for she had no shadow
of proof to support it. But it hung upon her
like a heavy chain. She took it with her wherever
she went.

More than once she contemplated taking Tommy into
her confidence. But again that lack of proof
deterred her. She was certain that Tommy would
give no credence to her theory. And his faith
in Monck—­his wariness, his discretion—­was
unbounded.

She did question Peter with regard to Rustam Karin,
but she elicited scant satisfaction from him.
Peter went but little to the native bazaar, and like
herself had never seen the man. He appeared so
seldom and then only by night. There was a rumour
that he was leprous. This was all that Peter
knew.

Page 111

And so it seemed useless to pursue the matter.
She could only wait and watch. Some day the man
might emerge from his lair, and she would be able
to identify him beyond all dispute. Peter could
help her then. But till then there was nothing
that she could do. She was quite helpless.

So, with that shrinking still strongly upon her that
made all mention of Ralph Dacre’s death so difficult,
she buried the matter deep in her own heart, determined
only that she also would watch with a vigilance that
never slackened until the proof for which she waited
should be hers.

The weeks had begun to slip by with incredible swiftness.
The tragedy of Ermsted’s death had ceased to
be the talk of the station. Tessa had gone back
to her mother who still remained a semi-invalid in
the Ralstons’ hospitable care. Netta’s
plans seemed to be of the vaguest; but Home leave
was due to Major Ralston the following year, and it
seemed likely that she would drift on till then and
return in their company.

Stella did not see very much of her friend in those
days. Netta, exacting and peevish, monopolized
much of the latter’s time and kept her effectually
at a distance. The days were growing hotter moreover,
and her energies flagged, though all her strength
was concentrated upon concealing the fact from Everard.
For already the annual exodus to Bhulwana was being
discussed, and only the possibility that the battalion
might be moved to a healthier spot for the summer had
deferred it for so long.

Stella clung to this possibility with a hope that
was passionate in its intensity. She had a morbid
dread of separation, albeit the danger she feared
seemed to have sunk into obscurity during the weeks
that had intervened. If there yet remained unrest
in the State, it was below the surface. The Rajah
came and went in his usual romantic way, played polo
with his British friends, danced and gracefully flattered
their wives as of yore.

On one occasion only did he ask Stella for a dance,
but she excused herself with a decision there was
no mistaking. Something within her revolted at
the bare idea. He went away smiling, but he never
asked her again.

Definite orders for the move to Udalkhand arrived
at length, and Stella’s heart rejoiced.
The place was situated on the edge of a river, a brown
and turgid torrent in the rainy weather, but no more
than a torpid, muddy stream before the monsoon.
A native town and temple stood upon its banks, but
a sandy road wound up to higher ground on which a
few bungalows stood, overlooking the grim, parched
desert below.

The jungle of Khanmulla was not more than five miles
distant, and Kurrumpore itself barely ten. But
yet Stella felt as if a load had been lifted from
her. Surely the danger here would be more remote!
And she would not need to leave her husband now.
That thought set her very heart a-singing.

Monck said but little upon the subject. He was
more non-committal than ever in those days. Everyone
said that Udalkhand was healthier and cooler than
Kurrumpore and he did not contradict the statement.
But yet Stella came to perceive after a time something
in his silence which she found unsatisfactory.
She believed he watched her narrowly though he certainly
had no appearance of doing so, and the suspicion made
her nervous.

Page 112

There were a few—­Lady Harriet among the
number—­who condemned Udalkhand from the
outset as impossible, and departed for Bhulwana without
attempting to spend even the beginning of the hot season
there. Netta Ermsted also decided against it
though Mrs. Ralston declared her intention of going
thither, and she and Tessa departed for that universal
haven The Grand Stand before any one else.

This freed Mrs. Ralston, but Stella had grown a little
apart from her friend during that period at Kurrumpore,
and a measure of reserve hung between them though
outwardly they were unchanged. A great languor
had come upon Stella which seemed to press all the
more heavily upon her because she only suffered herself
to indulge it in Everard’s absence. When
he was present she was almost feverishly active, but
it needed all her strength of will to achieve this,
and she had no energy over for her friends.

Even after the move to Udalkhand had been accomplished,
she scarcely felt the relief which she so urgently
needed. Though the place was undoubtedly more
airy than Kurrumpore, the air came from the desert,
and sand-storms were not infrequent.

She made a brave show nevertheless, and with Peter’s
help turned their new abode into as dainty a dwelling-place
as any could desire. Tommy also assisted with
much readiness though the increasing heat was anathema
to him also. He was more considerate for his sister
just then than he had ever been before. Often
in Monck’s absence he would spend much of his
time with her, till she grew to depend upon him to
an extent she scarcely realized. He had taken
up wood-carving in his leisure hours and very soon
she was fully occupied with executing elaborate designs
for his workmanship. They worked very happily
together. Tommy declared it kept him out of mischief,
for violent exercise never suited him in hot weather.

And it was hot. Every day seemed to bring the
scorching reality of summer a little nearer.
In spite of herself Stella flagged more and more.
Tommy always kept a brave front. He was full of
devices for ameliorating their discomfort. He
kept the punkah-coolie perpetually at his task.
He made the water-coolie spray the verandah a dozen
times a day. He set traps for the flies and caught
them in their swarms.

But he could not take the sun out of the sky which
day by day shone from horizon to horizon as a brazen
shield burnished to an intolerable brightness, while
the earth—–­ parched and cracked and
barren—­fainted beneath it. The nights
had begun to be oppressive also. The wind from
the desert was as the burning breath from a far-off
forest-fire which hourly drew a little nearer.
Stella sometimes felt as if a monster-hand were slowly
closing upon her, crushing out her life.

But still with all her might she strove to hide from
Monck the ravages of the cruel heat, even stooping
to the bitter subterfuge of faintly colouring the
deathly whiteness of her cheeks. For the wild-rose
bloom had departed long since, as Netta Ermsted had
predicted, though her beauty remained—­the
beauty of the pure white rose which is fairer than
any other flower that grows.

Page 113

There came a burning day at last, however, when she
realized that the evening drive was almost beyond
her powers. Tommy was on duty at the barracks.
Everard had, she believed, gone down to Khanmulla to
see Barnes of the Police. She decided in the
absence of both to indulge in a rest, and sent Peter
to countermand the carriage.

Then a great heaviness came upon her, and she yielded
herself to it, lying inert upon the couch in the drawing-room
dully listening to the creak of the punkah that stirred
without cooling the late afternoon air.

Some time must have passed thus and she must have
drifted into a species of vague dreaming that was
not wholly sleep when suddenly there came a sound
at the darkened window; the blind was lifted and Monck
stood in the opening.

She sprang up with a startled sense of being caught
off her guard, but the next moment a great dizziness
came upon her and she reeled back, groping for support.

He dropped the blind and caught her. “Why,
Stella!” he said.

She clung to him desperately. “I am all
right—­I am all right! Hold me a minute!
I—­I tripped against the matting.”
Gaspingly she uttered the words, hanging upon him,
for she knew she could not stand alone.

He put her gently down upon the sofa. “Take
it quietly, dear!” he said.

She leaned back upon the cushions with closed eyes,
for her brain was swimming. “I am all right,”
she reiterated. “You startled me a little.
I—­didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“I met Barnes just after I started,” he
made answer. “He is coming to dine presently.”

Her heart sank. “Is he?” she said
faintly.

“No.” Monck’s tone suddenly
held an odd note that was half-grim and half-protective.
“On second thoughts, he can go to the Mess with
Tommy. I don’t think I want him any more
than you do.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Everard,
of course he must dine here if you have asked him!
Tell Peter!”

Her vision was still slightly blurred, but she saw
that the set of his jaw was stubborn. He stooped
after a moment and kissed her forehead. “You
lie still!” he said. “And mind—­you
are not to dress for dinner.”

He turned with that and left her.

She was not sorry to be alone, for her head was throbbing
almost unbearably, but she would have given much to
know what was in his mind.

She lay there passively till presently she heard Tommy
dash in to dress for mess, and shortly after there
came the sound of men’s voices in the compound,
and she knew that Monck and Barnes were walking to
and fro together.

She got up then, summoning her energies, and stole
to her own room. Monck had commanded her not
to change her dress, but the haggardness of her face
shocked her into taking refuge in the remedy which
she secretly despised. She did it furtively,
hoping that in the darkened drawing-room he had not
noted the ghastly pallor which she thus sought to conceal.

Page 114

Before she left her room she heard Tommy and Barnes
departing, and when she entered the dining-room Monck
came in alone at the window and joined her.

She met him somewhat nervously, for she thought his
face was stern. But when he spoke, his voice
held nought but kindness, and she was reassured.
He did not look at her with any very close criticism,
nor did he revert to what had passed an hour before.

They were served by Peter, swiftly and silently, Stella
making a valiant effort to simulate an appetite which
she was far from possessing. The windows were
wide to the night, and from the river bank below there
came the thrumming of some stringed instrument, which
had a weird and strangely poignant throbbing, as if
it voiced some hidden distress. There were a
thousand sounds besides, some near, some distant, but
it penetrated them all with the persistence of some
small imprisoned creature working perpetually for
freedom.

It began to wear upon Stella’s nerves at last.
It was so futile, yet so pathetic—­the same
soft minor tinkle, only a few stray notes played over
and over, over and over, till her brain rang with the
maddening little refrain. She was glad when the
meal was over, and she could make the excuse to move
to the drawing-room. There was a piano here, a
rickety instrument long since hammered into tunelessness.
But she sat down before it. Anything was better
than to sit and listen to that single, plaintive little
voice of India crying in the night.

She thought and hoped that Monck would smoke his cigarette
and suffer himself to be lulled into somnolence by
such melody as she was able to extract from the crazy
old instrument; but he disappointed her.

He smoked indeed, lounging out in the verandah, while
she sought with every allurement to draw him in and
charm him to blissful, sleepy contentment. But
it presently came to her that there was something
dogged in his refusal to be so drawn, and when she
realized that she brought her soft nocturne
to a summary close and turned round to him with just
a hint of resentment.

He was leaning in the doorway, the cigarette gone
from his lips. His face was turned to the night.
His attitude seemed to express that patience which
attends upon iron resolution. He looked at her
over his shoulder as she paused.

“Why don’t you sing?” he said.

A little tremor of indignation went through her.
He spoke with the gentle indulgence of one who humours
a child. Only once had she ever sung to him,
and then he had sat in such utter immobility and silence
that she had questioned with herself afterwards if
he had cared for it.

She rose with a wholly unconscious touch of majesty.
“I have no voice to-night,” she said.

“Then come here!” he said.

His voice was still absolutely gentle but it held
an indefinable something that made her raise her brows.

She went to him nevertheless, and he put his hand
through her arm and drew her close to his side.
The night was heavy with a brooding heat-haze that
blotted out the stars. The little twanging instrument
down by the river was silent.

Page 115

For a space Monck did not speak, and gradually the
tension went out of Stella. She relaxed at length
and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

His arm went round her in a moment; he held her against
his heart. “Stella,” he said, “do
you ever think to yourself nowadays that I am a very
formidable person to live with?”

“Never,” she said.

His arm tightened about her. “You are not
afraid of me any longer?”

She smiled a little. “What is this leading
up to?”

He bent suddenly, his lips against her forehead.
“Dear heart, if I am wrong—­forgive
me! But—­why are you trying to deceive
me?”

She had never heard such tenderness in his voice before;
it thrilled her through and through, checking her
first involuntary dismay. She hid her face upon
his breast, clasping him close, trembling from head
to foot.

He turned, still holding her, and led her to the sofa.
They sat down together.

“Poor girl!” he said softly. “It
hasn’t been easy, has it?”

Then she realized that he knew all that she had so
strenuously sought to hide. The struggle was
over and she was beaten. A great wave of emotion
went through her. Before she could check herself,
she was shaken with sobs.

“No, no!” he said, and laid his hand upon
her head. “You mustn’t cry.
It’s all right, my darling. It’s all
right. What is there to cry about?”

She clung faster to him, and her hold was passionate.
“Everard,” she whispered, “Everard,—­I—­can’t
leave you!”

“Ah!” he said “We are up against
it now.”

“I can’t!” she said again.
“I can’t.”

His hand was softly stroking her hair. Such tenderness
as she had never dreamed of was in his touch.
“Leave off crying!” he said. “God
knows I want to make things easier for you—­not
harder.”

“I can bear anything,” she told him brokenly,
“anything in the world—­if only I
am with you. I can’t leave you. You
won’t—­you can’t—­force
me to that.”

“Stella! Stella!” he said.

His voice checked her. She knew that she had
hurt him. She lifted her face quickly to his.

“Oh, darling, forgive me!” she said.
“I know you would not.”

He kissed the quivering lips she raised without words,
and thereafter there fell a silence between them while
the mystery of the night seemed to press closer upon
them, and the veiled goddess turned in her sleep and
subtly smiled.

Stella uttered a long, long sigh at last. “You
are good to bear with me like this,” she said
rather piteously.

“Better now?” he questioned gently.

She closed her eyes from the grave scrutiny of his.
“I am—­quite all right, dear,”
she said. “And I am taking great care of
myself. Please—­please don’t
worry about me!”

His hand sought and found hers. “I have
been worrying about you for a long time,” he
said.

She gave a start of surprise. “I never
thought you noticed anything.”

Page 116

“Yes.” With a characteristic touch
of grimness he answered her. “I noticed
when you first began to colour your cheeks for my benefit.
I knew it was only for mine, or of course I should
have been furious.”

“Oh, Everard!” She hid her face against
him again with a little shamed laugh.

He went on without mercy. “I am not an
easy person to deceive, you know. You really
might have saved yourself the trouble. I hoped
you would give in sooner. That too would have
saved trouble.”

“But I haven’t given in,” she said.

His hand closed upon hers. “You would kill
yourself first if I would let you,” he said.
“But—­do you think I am going to do
that?”

“It would kill me to leave you,” she said.

“And what if it kills you to stay?” He
spoke with sudden force. “No, listen a
minute! I have something to tell you. I have
been worried about you—­as I said—­for
some time. To-day I was working in the orderly-room,
and Ralston chanced to come in. He asked me how
you were. I said, ’I am afraid the climate
is against her. What do you think of her?’
He replied, ’I’ll tell you what I think
of you, if you like. I think you’re a damned
fool.’ That opened my eyes.”
Monck ended on the old grim note. “I thanked
him for the information, and told him to come over
here and see you on the earliest opportunity.
He has promised to come round in the morning.”

“Oh, but Everard!” Stella started up in
swift protest. “I don’t want him!
I won’t see him!”

He kept her hand in his. “I am sorry,”
he said. “But I am going to insist on that.”

“You—­insist!” She looked at
him curiously, a quivering smile about her lips.

His eyes met hers uncompromisingly. “If
necessary,” he said.

She made a movement to free herself, but he frustrated
her, gently but with indisputable mastery.

“Stella,” he said, “things may be
difficult. I know they are. But, my dear,
don’t make them impossible! Let us pull
together in this as in everything else!”

She met his look steadily. “You know what
will happen, don’t you?” she said.
“He will order me to Bhulwana.”

Monck’s hand tightened upon hers. “Better
that,” he said, under his breath, “than
to lose you altogether!”

“And if it kills me to leave you?” she
said. “What then?”

He made a gesture that was almost violent, but instantly
restrained himself. “I think you are braver
than that,” he said.

Her lips quivered again piteously. “I am
not brave at all,” she said. “I left
all my courage—­all my faith—­in
the mountains one terrible morning—­when
God cursed me for marrying a man I did not love—­and
took—­the man—–­ away.”

“My darling!” Monck said. He drew
her to him again, holding her passionately close,
kissing the trembling lips till they clung to his in
answer. “Can’t you forget all that,”
he said, “put it right away from you, think
only of what lies before.”

Page 117

Her arms were round his neck. She poured out
her very soul to him in that close embrace. But
she said no word in answer, and her silence was the
silence of despair. It seemed to her that the
flaming sword she dreaded had flashed again across
her path, closing the way to happiness.

CHAPTER V

TESSA

The blue jay was still laughing on the pine-clad slopes
of Bhulwana when Stella returned thither. It
was glorious summer weather. There was life in
the air—­such life as never reached the Plains.

The bungalow up the hill, called “The Nest,”
which once Ralph Dacre had taken for his bride, was
to be Stella’s home for the period of her sojourn
at Bhulwana. It was a pretty little place twined
in roses, standing in a shady compound that Tessa
called “the jungle.” Tessa became
at once her most constant visitor. She and Scooter
were running wild as usual, but Netta was living in
strict retirement. People said she looked very
ill, but she seemed to resent all sympathy. There
was an air of defiance about her which kept most people
at a distance.

Stories were rife concerning her continued intimacy
with the Rajah who was now in residence at his summer
palace on the hill. They went for gallops together
in the early morning, and in the evenings they sometimes
flashed along the road in his car. But he was
seldom observed to enter the bungalow she occupied,
and even Tessa had no private information to add to
the general gossip. Netta seldom went to race
course or polo-ground, where the Rajah was most frequently
to be found.

Stella, who had never liked Netta Ermsted, took but
slight interest in her affairs. She always welcomed
Tessa, however, and presently, since her leisure was
ample and her health considerably improved, she began
to give the child a few lessons which soon became
the joy of Tessa’s heart. She found her
quick and full of enthusiasm. Her devotion to
Stella made her tractable, and they became fast friends.

It was in June just before the rains, that Monck came
up on a week’s leave. He found Tessa practically
established as Stella’s companion. Her
mother took no interest in her doings. The ayah
was responsible for her safety, and even if Tessa
elected to spend the night with her friend, Netta
raised no objection. It had always been her way
to leave the child to any who cared to look after
her, since she frankly acknowledged that she was quite
incapable of managing her herself. If Mrs. Monck
liked to be bothered with her, it was obviously her
affair, not Netta’s.

And so Stella kept the little girl more and more in
her own care, since Mrs. Ralston was still at Udalkhand,
and no one else cared in the smallest degree for her
welfare. She would not keep her for good, though,
so far as her mother was concerned, she might easily
have done so. But she did occasionally—­as
a great treat—­have her to sleep with her,
generally when Tessa’s looks proclaimed her to
be in urgent need of a long night. For she was
almost always late to bed when at home, refusing to
retire before her mother, though there was little of
companionship between them at any time.

Page 118

Stella investigated this resolution on one occasion,
and finally extracted from Tessa the admission that
she was afraid to go to bed early lest her mother
should go out unexpectedly, in which event the ayah
would certainly retire to the servants’ quarters,
and she would be alone in the bungalow. No amount
of reasoning on Stella’s part could shake this
dread. Tessa’s nerves were strung to a high
pitch, and it was evident that she felt very strongly
on the subject. So, out of sheer pity, Stella
sometimes kept her at “The Nest,” and Tessa’s
gratitude knew no bounds. She was growing fast,
and ought to have been in England for the past year
at least; but Netta’s plans were still vague.
She supposed she would have to go when the Ralstons
did, but she saw no reason for hurry. Lady Harriet
remonstrated with her on the subject, but obtained
no satisfaction. Netta was her own mistress now,
and meant to please herself.

Monck arrived late one evening on the day before that
on which he was expected, and found Tessa and Peter
playing with a ball in the compound. The two
were fast friends and Stella often left Tessa in his
charge while she rested.

She was resting now, lying in her own room with a
book, when suddenly the sound of Tessa’s voice
raised in excited welcome reached her. She heard
Monck’s quiet voice make reply, and started up
with every pulse quivering. She had not seen
him for nearly six weeks.

She met him in the verandah with Tessa hanging on
his arm. Since her great love for Stella had
developed, she had adopted Stella’s husband
also as her own especial property, though it could
scarcely be said that Monck gave her much encouragement.
On this occasion she simply ceased to exist for him
the moment he caught sight of Stella’s face.
And even Stella herself forgot the child in the first
rapture of greeting.

But later Tessa asserted herself again with a determination
that would not be ignored. She begged hard to
be allowed to remain for the night; but this Stella
refused to permit, though her heart smote her somewhat
when she saw her finally take her departure with many
wistful backward glances.

Monck was hard-hearted enough to smile. “Let
the imp go! She has had more than her share already,”
he said. “I’m not going to divide
you with any one under the sun.”

Stella was lying on the sofa. She reached out
and held his hand, leaning her cheek against his sleeve.
“Except—­” she murmured.

He bent to her, his lips upon her shining hair.
“Ah, I have begun to do that already,”
he said, with a touch of sadness. “I wonder
if you are as lonely up here as I am at Udalkhand.”

She kissed his sleeve. “I miss you—­unspeakably,”
she said.

His fingers closed upon hers. “Stella,
can you keep a secret?”

She looked up swiftly. “Of course—­of
course. What is it? Have they made you Governor-General
of the province?”

Page 119

He smiled grimly. “Not yet. But Sir
Reginald Bassett—­you know old Sir Reggie?—­came
and inspected us the other day, and we had a talk.
He is one of the keenest empire-builders that I ever
met.” An odd thrill sounded in Monck’s
voice. “He asked me if presently—­when
the vacancy occurred—­I would be his secretary,
his political adviser, as he put it. Stella,
it would be a mighty big step up. It would lead—­it
might lead—­to great things.”

“Oh, my darling!” She was quivering all
over. “Would it—­would it mean
that we should be together? No,” she caught
herself up sharply, “that is sheer selfishness.
I shouldn’t have asked that first.”

His lips pressed hers. “Don’t you
know it is the one thing that comes first of all with
me too?” he said. “Yes, it would mean
far less of separation. It would probably mean
Simla in the hot weather, and only short absences
for me. It would mean an end of this beastly regimental
life that you hate so badly. What? Did you
think I didn’t know that? But it would
also mean leaving poor Tommy at the grindstone, which
is hard.”

“Dear Tommy! But he has lots of friends.
You don’t think he would get up to mischief?”

“No, I don’t think so. He is more
of a man than he was. And I could keep an eye
on him—­even from a distance. Still,
it won’t come yet,—­not probably till
the end of the year. You are fairly comfortable
here—­you and Peter?”

She smiled and sighed. “Oh yes, he keeps
away the bogies, and Tessa chases off the blues.
So I am well taken care of!”

“I hope you don’t let that child wear
you out,” Monck said. “She is rather
a handful. Why don’t you leave her to her
mother?”

“Because she is utterly unfit to have the care
of her.” Stella spoke with very unusual
severity. “Since Captain Ermsted’s
death she seems to have drifted into a state of hopeless
apathy. I can’t bear to think of a susceptible
child like Tessa brought up in such an atmosphere.”

“Apathetic, is she? Do you often see her?”
Monck spoke casually, as he rolled a cigarette.

“Very seldom. She goes out very little,
and then only with the Rajah. They say she looks
ill, but that is not surprising. She doesn’t
lead a wholesome life!”

“She keeps up her intimacy with His Excellency
then?” Monck still spoke as if his thoughts
were elsewhere.

Stella dismissed the subject with a touch of impatience.
She had no desire to waste any precious moments over
idle gossip. “I imagine so, but I really
know very little. I don’t encourage Tessa
to talk. As you know, I never could bear the
man.”

Monck smiled a little. “I know you are
discretion itself,” he said. “But
you are not to adopt Tessa, mind, whatever the state
of her mother’s morals!”

“Ah, but I must do what I can for the poor waif,”
Stella protested. “There isn’t much
that I can do when I am away from you,—­not
much, I mean, that is worth while.”

Page 120

“All right,” Monck said with finality,
“so long as you don’t adopt her.”

Stella saw that he did not mean to allow Tessa a very
large share of her attention during his leave.
She did not dispute the point, knowing that he could
be as adamant when he had formed a resolution.

But she did not feel happy about the child. There
was to her something tragic about Tessa, as if the
evil fate that had overtaken the father brooded like
a dark cloud over her also. Her mind was not at
rest concerning her.

In the morning, however, Tessa arrived upon the scene,
impudent and cheerful, and she felt reassured.
Her next anxiety became to keep her from annoying
Monck upon whom naturally Tessa’s main attention
was centered. Tessa, however, was in an unusually
tiresome mood. She refused to be contented with
the society of the ever-patient Peter, repudiated
the bare idea of lesson books, and set herself with
fiendish ingenuity to torment the new-comer into exasperation.

Stella could have wept over her intractability.
She had never before found her difficult to manage.
But Netta’s perversity and Netta’s devilry
were uppermost in her that day, and when at last Monck
curtly ordered her not to worry herself but to leave
the child alone, she gave up her efforts in despair.
Tessa was riding for a fall.

It came eventually, after two hours’ provocation
on her part and stern patience on Monck’s.
Stella, at work in the drawing-room, heard a sudden
sharp exclamation from the verandah where Monck was
seated before a table littered with Hindu literature,
and looked up to see Tessa, with a monkey-like grin
of mischief, smoking the cigarette which she had just
snatched from between Monck’s lips. She
was dancing on one leg just out of reach, ready to
take instant flight should the occasion require.

Stella was on the point of starting up to intervene,
but Monck stopped her with a word. He was quieter
than she had ever seen him, and that fact of itself
warned her that he was angry at last.

“Come here!” he said to Tessa.

Tessa removed the cigarette to poke her tongue out
at him, and continued her war-dance just out of reach.
It was Netta to the life.

Monck glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I
give you one minute,” he said, and returned
to his work.”

“Why don’t you chase me?” gibed
Tessa.

He said nothing further, but to Stella his silence
was ominous. She watched him with anxious eyes.

Tessa continued to smoke and dance, posturing like
a nautch-girl in front of the wholly unresponsive
and unappreciative Monck.

The minute passed, Stella counting the seconds with
a throbbing heart. Monck did not raise his eyes
or stir, but there was to her something dreadful in
his utter stillness. She marvelled at Tessa’s
temerity.

Tessa continued to dance and jeer till suddenly, finding
that she was making no headway, a demon of temper
entered into her. She turned in a fury, sprang
from the verandah to the compound, snatched up a handful
of small stones and flung them full at the impassive
Monck.

Page 121

They fell around him in a shower. He looked up
at last.

What ensued was almost too swift for Stella’s
vision to follow. She saw him leap the verandah-balustrade,
and heard Tessa’s shrill scream of fright.
Then he had the offender in his grasp, and Stella saw
the deadly determination of his face as he turned.

In spite of herself she sprang up, but again his voice
checked her. “All right. This is my
job. Bring me the strap off the bag in my room!”

“Everard!” she cried aghast.

Tessa was struggling madly for freedom. He mastered
her as he would have mastered a refractory puppy,
carrying her up the steps ignominiously under his
arm.

“Do as I say!” he commanded.

And against her will Stella turned and obeyed.
She fetched the strap, but she held it back when he
stretched a hand for it.

“Everard, she is only a child. You won’t—­you
won’t——­”

“Flay her with it?” he suggested, and
she saw his brief, ironic smile. “Not at
present. Hand it over!”

She gave it reluctantly. Tessa squealed a wild
remonstrance. The merciless grip that held her
had sent terror to her heart.

Monck, still deadly quiet, set her on her feet against
one of the wooden posts that supported the roof of
the verandah, passed the strap round her waist and
buckled it firmly behind the post.

Then he stood up and looked again at the watch on
his wrist. “Two hours!” he said briefly,
and went back to his work at the other end of the
verandah.

Stella went back to the drawing-room, half-relieved
and half-dismayed. It was useless to interfere,
she saw; but the punishment, though richly deserved,
was a heavy one, and she wondered how Tessa, the ever-restless,
wrought up to a high pitch of nervous excitement as
she was, would stand it.

The thickness of the post to which she was fastened
made it impossible for her to free herself. The
strap was a very stout one, and the buckle such as
only a man’s fingers could loosen. It was
an undignified position, and Tessa valued her dignity
as a rule.

She cast it to the winds on this occasion, however,
for she fought like a wild cat for freedom, and when
at length her absolute helplessness was made quite
clear even to her, she went into a paroxysm of fury,
hurling every kind of invective that occurred to her
at Monck who with the grimness of an executioner sat
at his table in unbroken silence.

Having exhausted her vocabulary, both English and
Hindustani, Tessa broke at last into tears and wept
stormily for many minutes. Monck sat through
the storm without raising his eyes.

From the drawing-room Stella watched him. She
was no longer afraid of any unconsidered violence.
He was completely master of himself, but she thought
there was a hint of cruelty about him notwithstanding.
There was ruthlessness in his utter immobility.

The hour for tiffin drew near. Peter came
out on to the verandah to lay the cloth. Monck
gathered up books and papers and rose.

Page 122

The great Sikh looked at the child shaken with passionate
sobbing in the corner of the verandah and from her
to Monck with a touch of ferocity in his dark eyes.
Monck met the look with a frown and turned away without
a word. He passed down the verandah to his own
room, and Peter with hands that shook slightly proceeded
with his task.

Tessa’s sobbing died down, and there fell a
strained silence. Stella still sat in the drawing-room,
but she was out of sight of the two on the verandah.
She could only hear Peter’s soft movements.

Suddenly she heard a tense whisper. “Peter!
Peter! Quick!”

Like a shadow Peter crossed her line of vision.
She heard a murmured, “Missy babal”
and rising, she bent forward and saw him in the act
of severing Tessa’s bond with the bread-knife.
It was done in a few hard-breathing seconds.
The child was free. Peter turned in triumph,—­and
found Monck standing at the other end of the verandah,
looking at him.

Stella stepped out at the same moment and saw him
also. She felt the blood rush to her heart.
Only once had she seen Monck look as he looked now,
and that on an occasion of which even yet she never
willingly suffered herself to think.

Peter’s triumph wilted. “Run, Missy
baba!” he said, in a hurried whisper,
and moved himself to meet the wrath of the gods.

Tessa did not run. Neither did she spring to
Stella for protection. She stood for a second
or two in indecision; then with an odd little strangled
cry she darted in front of Peter, and went straight
to Monck.

Monck’s eyes went over her head to the native
beyond her. He spoke—­a few, brief
words in the man’s own language—­and
Peter winced as though he had been struck with a whip,
and bent himself in an attitude of the most profound
humility.

Monck spoke again curtly, and as if at the sudden
jerk of a string the man straightened himself and
went away.

Then Tessa, weeping, threw herself upon Monck.
“Do please not be angry with him! It was
all my fault. You—­you—­you
can whip me if you like! Only you mustn’t
be cross with Peter! It isn’t—­it
isn’t—­fair!”

He stood stiffly for a few seconds, as if he would
resist her; and Stella leaned against the window-frame,
feeling physically sick as she watched him. Then
abruptly his eyes came to hers, and she saw his face
change. He put his hand on Tessa’s shoulder.

“If you want forgiveness for yourself—­and
Peter,” he said grimly, “go back to your
corner and stay there!”

Tessa lifted her tear-stained face, looked at him
closely for a moment, then turned submissively and
went back.

Monck came down the verandah to his wife. He
put his arm around her, and drew her within.

“Why are you trembling?” he said.

She leaned her head against him. “Everard,
what did you say to Peter?”

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“Never mind!” said Monck.

She braced herself. “You are not to be
angry with him. He—­is my servant.
I will reprimand him—­if necessary.”

“It isn’t,” said Monck, with a brief
smile. “You can tell him to finish laying
the cloth.”

He kissed her and let her go, leaving her with a strong
impression that she had behaved foolishly. If
it had not been for that which she had seen in his
eyes for those few awful seconds, she would have despised
herself for her utter imbecility. But the memory
was one which she could not shake from her. She
did not wonder that even Peter, proud Sikh as he was,
had quailed before that look. Would Monck have
accepted even Tessa’s appeal if he had not found
her watching? She wondered. She wondered.

She did not look forward to the meal on the verandah,
but Monck realized this and had it laid in the dining-room
instead. At his command Peter carried a plate
out to Tessa, but it came back untouched, Peter explaining
in a very low voice that ‘Missy baba was
not hungry.’ The man’s attitude was
abject. He watched Monck furtively from behind
Stella’s chair, obeying his every behest with
a promptitude that expressed the most complete submission.

Monck bestowed no attention upon him. He smiled
a little when Stella expressed concern over Tessa’s
failure to eat anything. It was evident that
he felt no anxiety on that score himself. “Leave
the imp alone!” he said. “You are
not to worry yourself about her any more. You
have done more than enough in that line already.”

There was insistence in his tone—­an insistence
which he maintained later when he made her lie down
for her afternoon rest, steadily refusing to let her
go near the delinquent until she had had it.

Greatly against her will she yielded the point, protesting
that she could not sleep nevertheless. But when
he had gone she realized that the happenings of the
morning had wearied her more than she knew. She
was very tired, and she fell into a deep sleep which
lasted for nearly two hours.

Awakening from this, she got up with some compunction
at having left the child so long, and went to her
window to look for her. She found the corner
of Tessa’s punishment empty. A little further
along the verandah Monck lounged in a deep cane chair,
and, curled in his arms asleep with her head against
his neck was Tessa.

Monck’s eyes were fixed straight before him.
He was evidently deep in thought. But the grim
lines about his mouth were softened, and even as Stella
looked he stirred a little very cautiously to ease
the child’s position. Something in the
action sent the tears to her eyes. She went back
into her room, asking herself how she had ever doubted
for a moment the goodness of his heart.

Somewhere down the hill the blue jay was laughing
hilariously, scoffingly, as one who marked, with cynical
amusement the passing show of life; and a few seconds
later the Rajah’s car flashed past, carrying
the Rajah and a woman wearing a cloudy veil that streamed
far out behind her.

Page 124

CHAPTER VI

THE ARRIVAL

Two months later, on a dripping evening in August,
Monck stood alone on the verandah of his bungalow
at Udalkhand with a letter from Stella in his hand.
He had hurried back from duty on purpose to secure
it, knowing that it would be awaiting him. She
had become accustomed to the separation now, though
she spoke yearningly of his next leave. Mrs.
Ralston had joined her, and she wrote quite cheerfully.
She was very well, and looking forward—­oh,
so much—­to the winter. There was certainly
no sadness to be detected between the lines, and Monck
folded up the letter and looked across the dripping
compound with a smile in his eyes.

When the winter came, he would probably have taken
up his new appointment. Sir Reginald Bassett—­a
man of immense influence and energy—­was
actually in Udalkhand at that moment. He was ostensibly
paying a friendly visit at the Colonel’s bungalow,
but Monck knew well what it was that had brought him
to that steaming corner of Markestan in the very worst
of the rainy season. He had come to make some
definite arrangement with him. Probably before
that very night was over, he would have begun to gather
the fruit of his ambition. He had started already
to climb the ladder, and he would raise Stella with
him, Stella and that other being upon whom he sometimes
suffered his thoughts to dwell with a semi-humorous
contemplation as—­his son. A fantastic
fascination hung about the thought. He could
not yet visualize himself as a father. It was
easier far to picture Stella as a mother. But
yet, like a magnet drawing him, the vision seemed
to beckon. He walked the desert with a lighter
step, and Tommy swore that he was growing younger.

There was an enclosure in Stella’s letter from
Tessa, who called him her darling Uncle Everard and
begged him to come soon and see how good she was getting.
He smiled a little over this also, but with a touch
of wonder. The child’s worship seemed extraordinary
to him. His conquest of Tessa had been quite
complete, but it was odd that in consequence of it
she should love him as she loved no one else on earth.
Yet that she did so was an indubitable fact.
Her devotion exceeded even that of Tommy, which was
saying much. She seemed to regard him as a sacred
being, and her greatest pleasure in life was to do
him service.

He put her letter away also, reflecting that he must
manage somehow to make time to answer it. As
he did so, he heard Tommy’s voice hail him from
the compound, and in a moment the boy raced into sight,
taking the verandah steps at a hop, skip, and jump.

“Hullo, old chap! Admiring the view eh?
What? Got some letters? Have you heard from
your brother yet?”

“Not a word for weeks.” Monck turned
to meet him. “I can’t think what
has happened to him.”

“Can’t you though? I can!”
Tommy seized him impetuously by the shouders; he was
rocking with laughter. “Oh, Everard, old
boy, this beats everything! That brother of yours
is coming along the road now. And he’s
travelled all the way from Khanmulla in a—­in
a bullock-cart!”

Page 125

“What?” Monck stared in amazement.
“Are you mad?” he inquired.

“No—­no. It’s true!
Go and see for yourself, man! They’re just
getting here, slow and sure. He must be well
stocked with patience. Come on! They’re
stopping at the gate now.”

He dragged his brother-in-law to the steps. Monck
went, half-suspicious of a hoax. But he had barely
reached the path below when through the rain there
came the sound of wheels and heavy jingling.

“Come on!” yelled Tommy. “It’s
too good to miss!”

But ere they arrived at the gate it was blocked by
a massive figure in a streaming black mackintosh,
carrying a huge umbrella. “I say,”
said a soft voice, “what a damn’ jolly
part of the world to live in!”

“Hullo, my boy, hullo!” Cheerily the newcomer
made answer. “How do you open this beastly
gate? Oh, I see! Swelled a bit from the rain.
I must see to that for you presently. Hullo,
Everard! I chanced to find myself in this direction
so thought I would look up you and your wife.
How are you, my boy?”

An immense hand came forth and grasped Monck’s.
A merry red face beamed at him from under the great
umbrella. Twinkling eyes with red lashes shone
with the utmost good-will.

Monck gripped the hand as if he would never let it
go. But “My good man, you’re mad
to come here!” were the only words of welcome
he found to utter.

“Think so?” A humorous chuckle accompanied
the words. “Well, take me indoors and give
me a drink! There are a few traps in the cart
outside. Had we better collect ’em first?”

“I’ll see to them,” volunteered
Tommy, whose sense of humour was still somewhat out
of control. “Take him in out of the rain,
Everard! Send the khit along!”

He was gone with the words, and Everard, with his
brother’s hand pulled through his arm, piloted
him up to the bungalow.

In the shelter of the verandah they faced each other,
the one brother square and powerful, so broad as to
make his height appear insignificant; the other, brown,
lean, muscular, a soldier in every line, his dark,
resolute face a strange contrast to the ruddy open
countenance of the man who was the only near relation
he possessed in the world.

“Well,—­boy! I believe you’ve
grown.” The elder brother, surveyed the
younger with his shrewd, twinkling eyes. “By
Jove, I’m sure you have! I used not to
have to look up to you like this. Is it this devilish
climate that does it? And what on earth do you
live on? You look a positive skeleton.”

“Oh, that’s India, yes.” Everard
brushed aside all personal comment as superfluous.
“Come along in and refresh! What particular
star have you fallen from? And why in thunder
didn’t you say you were coming?”

The elder man laughed, slapping him on the shoulder
with hearty force. His clean-shaven face was
as free from care as a boy’s. He looked
as if life had dealt kindly with him.

Page 126

“Ah, I know you,” he said. “Wouldn’t
you have written off post-haste—­if you
hadn’t cabled—­and said, ‘Wait
till the rains are over?’ But I had raised my
anchor and I didn’t mean to wait. So I dispensed
with your brotherly counsel, and here I am! You
won’t find me in the way at all. I’m
dashed good at effacing myself.”

“My dear good chap,” Everard said, “you’re
about the only man in the world who need never think
of doing that.”

Bernard’s laugh was good to hear. “Who
taught you to turn such a pretty compliment?
Where is your wife? I want to see her.”

“You don’t suppose I keep her in this
filthy place, do you?” Everard was pouring out
a drink as he spoke. “No, no! She has
been at Bhulwana in the Hills for the past three months.
Now, St. Bernard, is this as you like it?”

The big man took the glass, looking at him with a
smile of kindly criticism. “Well, you won’t
bore each other at that rate, anyhow,” he remarked.
“Here’s to you both! I drink to the
greatest thing in life!” He drank deeply and
set down the glass. “Look here! You’re
just off to mess. Don’t let me keep you!
All I want is a cold bath. And then—­if
you’ve got a spare shakedown of any sort—­going
to bed is mere ritual with me. I can sleep on
my head—­anywhere.”

Tommy came in through the window and shook hands with
much heartiness.

“The khit is seeing to everything.
Pleased to meet you, sir! Beastly wet for you,
I’m afraid, but there’s worse things than
rain in India. Hope you had a decent voyage.”

Bernard laughed in his easy, good-humoured fashion.
“Like the niggers, I can make myself comfortable
most anywheres. We had rather a foul time after
leaving Aden. Ratting in the hold was our main
excitement when we weren’t sweating at the pumps.
Oh no, I didn’t come over in one of your majestic
liners. I have a sailor’s soul.”

A flicker of admiration shot through the merriment
in Tommy’s eyes. “Wish I had,”
he observed. “But the very thought of the
sea turns mine upside down. If you’re keen
on ratting, there’s plenty of sport of that
kind to be had here. The brutes hold gymkhanas
on the verandah every, night. I sit up with a
gun sometimes when Everard is out of the way.”

“Yes, he’s a peaceful person to live with,”
remarked Everard. “Have something to eat,
St. Bernard!”

“No, no, thanks! My appetite will keep.
A cold bath is my most pressing need. Can I have
that?”

“Sure!” said Tommy. “You ’re
coming to mess with us of course? Old Reggie
Bassett is honouring us with his presence to-night.
It will be a historic occasion, eh, Everard?”

Page 127

He smiled upon the elder brother with obvious pleasure
at the prospect. Bernard Monck always met with
a welcome wherever he went, and Tommy was prepared
to like any one belonging to Everard. It was good
too to see Everard with that eager light in his eyes.
During the whole of their acquaintance he had never
seen him look so young.

Bernard held a somewhat different opinion, however,
and as he found himself alone again with his brother
he took him by the shoulders, and held him for a closer
survey.

“What has India been doing to you, dear fellow?”
he said. “You look about as ancient as
the Sphinx. Been working like a dray-horse all
this time?”

“Perhaps.” Everard’s smile
held something of restraint. “We can’t
all of us stand still, St. Bernard. Perpetual
youth is given only to the favoured few.”

“Ah!” The older man’s eyes narrowed
a little. For a moment there existed a curious,
wholly indefinite, resembance between them. “And
you are happy?” he asked abruptly.

Everard’s eyes held a certain hardness as he
replied, “Provisionally, yes. I haven’t
got all I want yet—­if that’s what
you mean. But I am on the way to getting it.”

Bernard Monck looked at him a moment longer, and let
him go. “Are you sure you’re wanting
the right thing?” he said.

It was not a question that demanded an answer, and
Everard made none. He turned aside with a scarcely
perceptible lift of the shoulders.

“You haven’t told me yet how you come
to be here,” he said. “Have you given
up the Charthurst chaplaincy?”

“It gave me up.” Bernard spoke quietly,
but there was deep regret in his voice. “A
new governor came—­a man of curiously rigid
ideas. Anyway, I was not parson enough for him.
We couldn’t assimilate. I tried my hardest,
but we couldn’t get into touch anywhere.
I preached the law of Divine liberty to the captives.
And he—­good man! preferred to keep them
safely locked in the dungeon. I was forced to
quit the position. I had no choice.”

“What a fool!” observed Everard tersely.

Bernard’s ready smile re-appeared. “Thanks,
old chap!” he said. “That’s
just the point of view I wanted you to take. Now
I have other schemes on hand. I’ll tell
you later what they are. I think I’d better
have that cold bath next if you’re really going
to take me along to mess with you. By Jove, how
it does rain! Does it ever leave off in these
parts?”

“Not very often this time of the year.
I’m not going to let you stay here for long.”
Everard spoke with his customary curt decision.
“It’s no place for fellows like you.
You must go to Bhulwana and join my wife.”

“Many thanks!” Bernard made a grotesque
gesture of submission. “What sort of woman
is your wife, my son? Do you think she will like
me?”

Everard turned and smote him on the shoulder.
“Of course she will! She will adore you.
All women do.”

Page 128

“Oh, not quite!” protested Bernard modestly.
“I’m not tall enough to please everyone
of the feminine gender. But you think your wife
will overlook that?”

“I know,” said Everard, with conviction.

His brother laughed with cheery self-satisfaction.
“In that case, of course I shall adore her,”
he said.

CHAPTER VII

FALSE PRETENCES

They were a merry party at mess that night. General
Sir Reginald Bassett was a man of the bluff soldierly
order who knew how to command respect from his inferiors
while at the same time he set them at their ease.
There was no pomp and circumstance about him, yet in
the whole of the Indian Empire there was not an officer
more highly honoured and few who possessed such wide
influence as “old Sir Reggie,” as irreverent
subalterns fondly called him.

The new arrival, Bernard Monck, diffused a genial
atmosphere quite unconsciously wherever he went, and
he and the old Indian soldier gravitated towards each
other almost instinctively. Colonel Mansfield
declared later that they made it impossible for him
to maintain order, so spontaneous and so infectious
was the gaiety that ran round the board. Even
Major Ralston’s leaden sense of humour was stirred.
As Tommy had declared, it promised to be a historic
occasion.

When the time for toasts arrived and, after the usual
routine, the Colonel proposed the health of their
honoured guest of the evening, Sir Reginald interposed
with a courteous request that that of their other
guest might be coupled with his, and the dual toast
was drunk with acclamations.

“I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing
more of you during your stay in India,” the
General remarked to his fellow-guest when he had returned
thanks and quiet was restored. “You have
come for the winter, I presume.”

Bernard laughed. “Well, no, sir, though
I shall hope to see it through. I am not globe-trotting,
and times and seasons don’t affect me much.
My only reason for coming out at all was to see my
brother here. You see, we haven’t met for
a good many years.”

The statement was quite casually made, but Major Burton,
who was seated next to him, made a sharp movement
as if startled. He was a man who prided himself
upon his astuteness in discovering discrepancies in
even the most truthful stories.

“Didn’t you meet last year when he went
Home?” he said.

“Last year! No. He wasn’t Home
last year.” Bernard looked full at his
questioner, understanding neither his tone nor look.

A sudden silence had fallen near them; it spread like
a widening ring upon disturbed waters.

Major Burton spoke, in his voice, a queer, scoffing
inflection. “He was absent on Home leave
anyway. We all understood—­were given
to understand—­that you had sent him an
urgent summons.”

“I?” For an instant Bernard Monck stared
in genuine bewilderment. Then abruptly he turned
to his brother who was listening inscrutably on the
other side of the table. “Some mistake here,
Everard,” he said. “You haven’t
been Home for seven years or more have you?”

Page 129

There was dead silence in the room as he put the question—­a
silence, so full of expectancy as to be almost painful.
Across the table the eyes of the two brothers met
and held.

Then, “I have not,” said Everard Monck
with quiet finality.

There was no note of challenge in his voice, neither
was there any dismay. But the effect of his words
upon every man present was as if he had flung a bomb
into their midst. The silence endured tensely
for a couple of seconds, then there came a hard breath
and a general movement as if by common consent the
company desired to put an end to a situation, that
had become unendurable.

Bertie Oakes dug Tommy in the ribs, but Tommy was
as white as death and did not even feel it. Something
had happened, something that made him feel giddy and
very sick. That significant silence was to him
nothing short of tragedy. He had seen his hero
topple at a touch from the high pinnacle on which
he had placed him, and he felt as if the very ground
under his feet had become a quicksand.

As in a maze of shifting impressions he heard Sir
Reginald valiantly covering the sudden breach, talking
inconsequently in a language which Tommy could not
even recognize as his own. And the Colonel was
seconding his efforts, while Major Burton sat frowning
at the end of his cigar as if he were trying to focus
his sight upon something infinitesimal and elusive.
No one looked at Monck, in fact everyone seemed studiously
to avoid doing so. Even his brother seemed lost
in meditation with his eyes fixed immovably upon a
lamp that hung from the ceiling and swayed ponderously
in the draught.

Then at last there came a definite move, and Bertie
Oakes poked him again. “Are you moonstruck?”
he said.

Tommy got up with the rest, still feeling sick and
oddly unsure of himself. He pushed his brother-subaltern
aside as if he had been an inanimate object, and somehow,
groping, found his way to the door and out to the
entrance for a breath of air.

It was raining heavily and the odour of a thousand
intangible things hung in the atmosphere. For
a space he leaned in the doorway undisturbed; then,
heralded by the smell of a rank cigar, Ralston lounged
up and joined him.

“Are you looking for a safe corner to catch
fever in?” he inquired phlegmatically, after
a pause.

Tommy made a restless movement, but spoke no word.

Ralston smoked for a space in silence. From behind
them there came the rattle of billiard-balls and careless
clatter of voices. Before them was a pall-like
darkness and the endless patter of rain.

Suddenly Ralston spoke. “Make no mistake!”
he said. “There’s a reason for everything.”

The words sounded irrelevant; they even had a sententious
ring. Yet Tommy turned towards him with an impulsive
gesture of gratitude.

“Of course!” he said.

Ralston relapsed into a ruminating silence. A
full minute elapsed before he spoke again. Then:
“You don’t like taking advice I know,”
he said, in his stolid, somewhat gruff fashion.
“But if you’re wise, you’ll swallow
a stiff dose of quinine before you turn in. Good-night!”

Page 130

He swung round on his heel and walked away. Tommy
knew that he had gone for his nightly game of chess
with Major Burton and would not exchange so much as
another half-dozen words with any one during the rest
of the evening.

He himself remained for a while where he was, recovering
his balance; then at length donned his mackintosh,
and tramped forth into the night. Ralston was
right. Doubtless there was a reason. He would
stake his life on Everard’s honour whatever
the odds.

In a quiet corner of the ante-room sat Everard Monck,
deeply immersed in a paper. Near him a group
of bridge-players played an almost silent game.
Sir Reginald and his brother had followed the youngsters
to the billiard-room, the Colonel had accompanied
them, but after a decent interval he left the guests
to themselves and returned to the ante-room.

He passed the bridge-players by and came to Monck.
The latter glanced up at his approach.

“Are you looking for me, sir?”

“If you can spare me a moment, I shall be glad,”
the Colonel said formally.

Monck rose instantly. His dark face had a granite-like
look as he followed his superior officer from the
room. The bridge-players watched him with furtive
attention, and resumed their game in silence.

The Colonel led the way back to the mess-room, now
deserted. “I shall not keep you long,”
he said, as Monck shut the door and moved forward.
“But I must ask of you an explanation of the
fact which came to light this evening.”
He paused a moment, but Monck spoke no word, and he
continued with growing coldness. “Rather
more than a year ago you refused a Government mission,
for which your services were urgently required, on
the plea of pressing business at Home. You had
Home leave—­at a time when we were under-officered—­to
carry this business through. Now, Captain Monck,
will you be good enough to tell me how and where you
spent that leave? Whatever you say I shall treat
as confidential.”

He still spoke formally, but the usual rather pompous
kindliness of his face had given place to a look of
acute anxiety.

Monck stood at the table, gazing straight before him.
“You have a perfect right to ask, sir,”
he said, after a moment. “But I am not in
a position to answer.”

“In other words, you refuse to answer?”
The Colonel’s voice had a rasp in it, but that
also held more of anxiety than anger.

There was a brief silence. Colonel Mansfield
was looking at him as if he would read him through
and through. But no stone mask could have been
more impenetrable than Monck’s face as he stood
stiffly waiting.

When the Colonel spoke again it was wholly without
emotion. His tones fell cold and measured.
“You obtained that leave upon false pretences?
You had no urgent business?”

Monck answered him with machine-like accuracy.
“Yes, sir, I deceived you. But my business
was urgent nevertheless. That is my only excuse.”

Page 131

“Was it in connection with some Secret Service
requirement?” The Colonel’s tone was strictly
judicial now; he had banished all feeling from face
and manner.

And again, like a machine, Monck made his curt reply.
“No, sir.”

“There was nothing official about it?”

“Nothing.”

“I am to conclude then—­” again
the rasp was in the Colonel’s voice, but it
sounded harsher now—­“that the business
upon which you absented yourself was strictly private
and personal?”

“It was, sir.”

The commanding officer’s brows contracted heavily.
“Am I also to conclude that it was something
of a dishonourable nature?” he asked.

Monck made a scarcely perceptible movement. It
was as if the point had somehow pierced his armour.
But he covered it instantly. “Your deductions
are of your own making, sir,” he said.

“I see.” The Colonel’s tone
was openly harsh. “You are ashamed to tell
me the truth. Well, Captain Monck, I cannot compel
you to do so. But it would have been better for
your own sake if you had taken up a less reticent
attitude. Of course I realize that there are certain
shameful occasions regarding which any man must keep
silence, but I had not thought you capable of having
a secret of that description to guard. I think
it very doubtful if General Bassett will now require
your services upon his staff.”

He paused. Monck’s hands were clenched
and rigid, but he spoke no word, and gave no other
sign of emotion.

“You have nothing to say to me?” the Colonel
asked, and for a moment the official air was gone.
He spoke as one man to another and almost with entreaty.

But, “Nothing, sir,” said Monck firmly,
and the moment passed.

The Colonel turned aside. “Very well,”
he said briefly.

Monck swung round and opened the door for him, standing
as stiffly as a soldier on parade.

He went out without a backward glance.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WRATH OF THE GODS

It was nearly an hour later that Everard Monck and
his brother left the mess together and walked back
through the dripping darkness to the bungalow on the
hill overlooking the river. The rush of the swollen
stream became audible as they drew near. The sound
of it was inexpressibly wild and desolate.

“It’s an interesting country,” remarked
Bernard, breaking a silence. “I don’t
wonder she has got hold of you, my son. What does
your wife think of it? Is she too caught in the
toils?”

Not by word or look had he made the smallest reference
to the episode at the mess-table. It was as if
he alone of those present had wholly missed its significance.

Everard answered him quietly, without much emphasis.
“I believe my wife hates it from beginning to
end. Perhaps it is not surprising. She has
been through a good deal since she came out. And
I am afraid there is a good deal before her still.”

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Bernard’s big hand closed upon his arm.
“Poor old chap!” lie said. “You
Indian fellows don’t have any such time of it,
or your women folk either. How long is she a
fixture at Bhulwana?”

“The baby is expected in two months’ time.”
Everard spoke without emotion, his voice sounded almost
cold. “After that, I don’t know what
will happen. Nothing is settled. Tell me
your plans now! No, wait! Let’s get
in out of this damned rain first!”

They entered the bungalow and sat down for another
smoke in the drawing-room.

Down by the river a native instrument thrummed monotonously,
like the whirring of a giant mosquito in the darkness.
Everard turned with a slight gesture of impatience
and closed the window.

He established his brother in a long chair with a
drink at his elbow, and sat down himself without any
pretence at taking his ease.

“You don’t look particularly comfortable,”
Bernard observed.

“Don’t mind me!” he made curt response.
“I’ve got a touch of fever to-night.
It’s nothing. I shall be all right in the
morning.”

“Sure?” Bernard’s eyes suddenly
ceased to be quizzical; they looked at him straight
and hard.

He struck a match for his brother’s pipe and
kindled his own cigarette thereat.

There fell a brief silence. Bernard did not look
wholly satisfied. But after a few seconds he
seemed to dismiss the matter and began to talk of
himself.

“You want to know my plans, old chap. Well,
as far as I know ’em myself, you are quite welcome.
With your permission, I propose, for the present,
to stay where I am.”

“I shouldn’t if I were you.”
Everard spoke with brief decision. “You’d
be far better off at Bhulwana till the end of the rains.”

Bernard puffed forth a great cloud of smoke and stared
at the ceiling. “That is as may be, dear
fellow,” he said, after a moment. “But
I think—­if you’ll put up with me—­I’ll
stay here for the present all the same.”

He spoke in that peculiarly gentle voice of his that
yet held considerable resolution. Everard made
no attempt to combat the decision. Perhaps he
realized the uselessness of such a proceeding.

“Stay by all means!” he said, “but
what’s the idea?”

Bernard took his pipe from his mouth. “I
have a big fight before me, Everard boy,” he
said, “a fight against the sort of prejudice
that kicked me out of the Charthurst job. It’s
got to be fought with the pen—­since I am
no street corner ranter. I have the solid outlines
of the campaign in my head, and I have come out here
to get right away from things and work it out.”

“Going to reform creation?” suggested
Everard, with his grim smile.

Bernard shook his head, smiling in answer as though
the cynicism had not reached him. “No,
that’s not my job. I am only a man under
authority—­like yourself. I don’t
see the result at all. I only see the work, and
with God’s help, that will be exactly what He
intended it should be when He gave it to me to do.”

Page 133

“Lucky man!” said Everard briefly.

“Ah! I didn’t think myself lucky
when I had to give up the Charthurst chaplaincy.”
Bernard spoke through a haze of smoke. “I’m
afraid I kicked a bit at first—­which was
a short-sighted thing to do, I admit. But I had
got to look on it as my life-work, and I loved it.
It held such opportunities.” He broke off
with a sharp sigh. “I shall be at it again
if I go on. Can’t you give me something
pleasanter to think about? Haven’t you
got a photograph of your wife to show me?”

Everard got up. “Yes, I have. But
it doesn’t do her justice.” He took
a letter-case from his pocket and opened it.
A moment he stood bent over the portrait he withdrew
from it, then turned and handed it to his brother.

Bernard studied it in silence. It was an unmounted
amateur photograph of Stella standing on the creeper-grown
verandah of the Green Bungalow. She was smiling,
but her eyes were faintly sad, as though shadowed by
the memory of some past pain.

For many seconds Bernard gazed upon the pictured face.
Finally he spoke.

“Your wife must be a very beautiful woman.”

“Yes,” said Everard quietly.

He spoke gravely. His brother’s eyes travelled
upwards swiftly. “That was not what you
married her for, eh?”

Everard stooped and took the portrait from him.
“Well, no—­not entirely,” he
said.

Bernard smiled a little. “You haven’t
told me much about her, you know. How long have
you been acquainted?”

“Nearly two years. I think I mentioned
in my letter that she was the widow of a comrade?”

“Yes, I remember. But you were rather vague
about it. What happened to him? Didn’t
he meet with a violent death?”

There was a pause. Everard was still standing
with his eyes fixed upon the photograph. His
face was stern.

“What was it?” questioned Bernard.
“Didn’t he fall over a precipice?”

“Yes,” abruptly the younger man made answer.
“It happened in Kashmir when they were on their
honeymoon.”

“Ah! Poor girl! She must have suffered.
What was his name? Was he a pal of yours?”

“More or less.” Everard’s voice
rang hard. “His name was Dacre.”

“Oh, to be sure. The man I wrote to you
about just before poor Madelina Belleville died in
prison. Her husband’s name was Dacre.
He was in the Army too, and she thought he was in
India. But it’s not a very uncommon name.”
Bernard spoke thoughtfully. “You said he
was no relation.”

“I said to the best of my belief he was not.”
Everard turned suddenly and sat down. “People
are not keen, you know, on owning to shady relations.
He was no exception to the rule. But if the woman
died, it’s of no great consequence now to any
one. When did she die?”

Bernard took a long pull at his pipe. His brows
were slightly drawn. “She died suddenly,
poor soul. Did I never tell you? It must
have been immediately after I wrote that letter to
you. It was. I remember now. It was
the very day after.... She died on the twenty-first
of March—­the first day of spring.
Poor girl! She had so longed for the spring.
Her time would have been up in May.”

Page 134

Something in the silence that followed his words made
him turn his head to look at his brother. Everard
was sitting perfectly rigid in his chair staring at
the ground between his feet as if he saw a serpent
writhing there. But before another word could
be spoken, he got up abruptly, with a gesture as of
shaking off the loathsome thing, and went to the window.
He flung it wide, and stood in the opening, breathing
hard as a man half-suffocated.

“Anything wrong, old chap?” questioned
Bernard.

He answered him without turning. “No; it’s
only my infernal head. I think I’ll turn
in directly. It’s a fiendish night.”

The rain was falling in torrents, and a long roll
of thunder sounded from afar. The clatter of
the great drops on the roof of the verandah filled
the room, making all further conversation impossible.
It was like a tattoo of devils.

“A damn’ pleasant country this!”
murmured the man in the chair.

The man at the window said no word. He was gasping
a little, his face to the howling night.

For a space Bernard lay and watched him. Then
at last, somewhat ponderously he arose.

Everard could not have heard his approach, but he
was aware of it before he reached him. He turned
swiftly round, pulling the window closed behind him.

They stood facing each other, and there was something
tense in the atmosphere, something that was oddly
suggestive of mental conflict. The devils’
tattoo on the roof had sunk to a mere undersong, a
fitting accompaniment as it were to the electricity
in the room.

Bernard spoke at length, slowly, deliberately, but
not unkindly. “Why should you take the
trouble to—­fence with me?” he said.
“Is it worth it, do you think?”

Everard’s face was set and grey like a stone
mask. He did not speak for a moment; then curtly,
noncommittally, “What do you mean?” he
said.

“I mean,” very steadily Bernard made reply,
“that the scoundrel Dacre, who married Madelina
Belleville and then deserted her, left her to go to
the dogs, and your brother-officer who was killed in
the mountains on his honeymoon, were one and the same
man. And you knew it.”

“Well?” The words seemed to come from
closed lips. There was something terrible in
the titter quietness of its utterance.

Bernard searched his face as a man might search the
walls of an apparently impregnable fortress for some
vulnerable spot. “Ah, I see,” he
said, after a moment. “You must have believed
Madelina to be still alive when Dacre married.
What was the date of his marriage?”

“The twenty-fifth of March.” Again
the grim lips spoke without seeming to move.

A gleam of relief crossed his brother’s face.
“In that case no one is any the worse.
I’m sorry you’ve carried that bugbear about
with you for so long. What an infernal hound
the fellow was!”

“Yes,” assented Everard.

He moved to the table and poured himself out a drink.

Page 135

His brother still watched him. “One might
almost say his death was providential,” he observed.
“Of course—­your wife—­never
knew of this?”

“No.” Everard lifted the glass to
his lips with a perfectly steady hand and drank.
“She never will know,” he said, as he set
it down.

“Certainly not. You can trust me never
to tell her.” Bernard moved to his side,
and laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. “You
know you can trust me, old fellow?”

Everard did not look at him. “Yes, I know,”
he said.

His brother’s hand pressed upon him a little.
“Since they are both gone,” he said, “there
is nothing more to be said on the subject. But,
oh, man, stick to the truth, whatever else you let
go of! You never lied to me before.”

His tone was very earnest. It held urgent entreaty.
Everard turned and met his eyes. His dark face
was wholly emotionless. “I am sorry, St.
Bernard,” he said.

Bernard’s kindly smile wrinkled his eyes.
He grasped and held the younger man’s hand.
“All right, boy. I’m going to forget
it,” he said. “Now what about turning
in?”

They parted for the night immediately after, the one
to sleep as serenely as a child almost as soon as
he lay down, the other to pace to and fro, to and
fro, for hours, grappling—­and grappling
in vain—­with the sternest adversary he
had ever had to encounter.

For upon Everard Monck that night the wrath of the
gods had descended, and against it, even his grim
fortitude was powerless to make a stand. He was
beaten before he could begin to defend himself, beaten
and flung aside as contemptible. Only one thing
remained to be fought for, and that one thing he swore
to guard with the last ounce of his strength, even
at the cost of life itself.

All through that night of bitter turmoil he came back
again and again to that, the only solid foothold left
him in the shifting desert-sand. So long as his
heart should beat he would defend that one precious
possession that yet remained,—­the honour
of the woman who loved him and whom he loved as only
the few know how to love.

PART IV

CHAPTER I

DEVILS’ DICE

“It’s a pity,” said Sir Reginald.

“It’s a damnable pity, sir,” Colonel
Mansfield spoke with blunt emphasis. “I
have trusted the fellow almost as I would have trusted
myself. And he has let me down.”

The two were old friends. The tie of India bound
them both. Though their ways lay apart and they
met but seldom, the same spirit was in them and they
were as comrades. They sat together in the Colonel’s
office that looked over the streaming parade-ground.
A gleam of morning sunshine had pierced the clouds,
and the smoke of the Plains went up like a furnace.

“I shouldn’t be too sure of that,”
said Sir Reginald, after a thoughtful moment.
“Things are not always what they seem. One
is apt to repent of a hasty judgment.”

Page 136

“I know.” The Colonel spoke with
his eyes upon the rising cloud of steam outside.
“But this fellow has always had my confidence,
and I can’t get over what he himself admits
to have been a piece of double-dealing. I suppose
it was a sudden temptation, but he had always been
so straight with me; at least I had always imagined
him so. He has rendered some invaluable services
too.”

“Neither can she afford to make use of rotters,”
rejoined the Colonel.

Sir Reginald smiled a little. “I am not
so sure of that, Mansfield. Even the rotters
have their uses. But I am quite convinced in my
own mind that this man is very far from being one.
I feel inclined to go slow for a time and give him
a chance to retrieve himself. Perhaps it may sound
soft to you, but I have never floored a man at his
first slip. And this man has a clean record behind
him. Let it stand him in good stead now!”

“It will take me some time to forget it,”
the Colonel said. “I can forgive almost
anything except deception. And that I loathe.”

“It isn’t pleasant to be cheated, certainly,”
Sir Reginald agreed. “When did this happen?
Was he married at the time?”

“No.” The Colonel meditated for a
few seconds “He only married last spring.
This was considerably more than a year ago. It
must have been the spring of the preceding year.
Yes, by Jove, it was! It was just at the time
of poor Dacre’s marriage. Dacre, you know,
married young Denvers’ sister—­the
girl who is now Monck’s wife. Dacre was
killed on his honeymoon only a fortnight after the
wedding. You remember that, Burton?” He
turned abruptly to the Major who had entered while
he was speaking.

Burton came to a stand at the table. His eyes
were set very close together, and they glittered meanly
as he made reply. “I remember it very well
indeed. His death coincided with this mysterious
leave of Monck’s, and also with the unexpected
absence of our man Rustam Karin just at a moment when
Barnes particularly needed him.”

“Who is Rustam Karin?” asked Sir Reginald.

“A police agent. A clever man. I may
say, an invaluable man.” Colonel Mansfield
was looking hard at the Major’s ferret-like face
as he made reply. “No one likes the fellow.
He is suspected of being a leper. But he is clever.
He is undoubtedly clever. I remember his absence.
It was at the time of that mission to Khanmulla, the
mission I wanted Monck to take in hand.”

“Exactly.” Major Burton rapped out
the word with a sound like the cracking of a nut.
“We—­or rather Barnes—­tried
to pump Hafiz about it, but he was a mass of ignorance
and lies. I believe the old brute turned up again
before Monck’s return, but he wasn’t visible
till afterwards. He and Monck have always been
thick as thieves—­thick as thieves.”
He paused, looking at Sir Reginald. “A
very fishy transaction, sir,” he observed.

Page 137

Sir Reginald’s eyes met his. “Are
you,” he said calmly, “trying to establish
any connection between the death of Dacre and the absence
from Kurrumpore of this man Rustam Karin?”

“Not only Rustam Karin, sir,” responded
the Major sharply.

“Ah! Quite so. How did Dacre die?”
Sir Reginald still spoke quietly, judicially.
There was nothing encouraging in his aspect.

Burton hesitated momentarily, as if some inner warning
prompted him to go warily.

“That was what no one knew for certain, sir.
He disappeared one night. The story went that
he fell over a precipice. Some old native beggar
told the tale. No one knows who the man was.”

“True!” Sir Reginald’s voice sounded
very dry. “Perhaps it is a mistake to trust
any one too far. This is all the evidence you
can muster?”

“Yes, sir.” Burton looked suddenly
embarrassed. “Of course it is not evidence,
strictly speaking,” he said. “But
when mysteries coincide, one is apt to link them together.
And the death of Captain Dacre always seemed to me
highly mysterious.”

“The death of Captain Ermsted was no less so,”
put in the Colonel abruptly. “Have you
any theories on that subject also?”

Burton smiled, showing his teeth. “I always
have theories,” he said.

Sir Reginald made a slight movement of impatience.
“I think this is beside the point,” he
said. “Captain Ermsted’s murderer
will probably be traced one day.”

“Probably, sir,” agreed Major Burton,
“since I hear unofficially that Captain Monck
has the matter in hand. Ah!”

He broke off short as, with a brief knock at the door,
Monck himself made an abrupt appearance.

He came forward as if he saw no one in the room but
the Colonel. His face wore a curiously stony
look, but his eyes burned with a fierce intensity.
He spoke without apology or preliminary of any sort.

“I have just had a message, sir, from Bhulwana,”
he said. “I wish to apply for immediate
leave.”

The Colonel looked at him in surprise. “A
message, Captain Monck?”

“From my wife,” Monck said, and drew a
hard breath between his teeth. His hands were
clenched hard at his sides. “I’ve
got to go!” he said. “I’ve
got to go!”

There was a moment’s silence. Then:
“May I see the message?” said the Colonel.

Monck’s eyelids flickered sharply, as if he
had been struck across the face. He thrust out
his right hand and flung a crumpled paper upon the
table. “There, sir!” he said harshly.

There was violence in the action, but it did not hold
insolence. Sir Reginald leaning forward, was
watching him intently. As the Colonel, with a
word of excuse to himself, took up and opened the paper,
he rose quietly and went up to Monck. Thin, wiry,
grizzled, he stopped beside him.

Page 138

Major Burton retired behind the Colonel, realizing
himself as unnecessary but too curious to withdraw
altogether.

In the pause that followed, a tense silence reigned.
Monck was swaying as he stood. His eyes had the
strained and awful look of a man with his soul in
torment. After that one hard breath, he had not
breathed at all.

The Colonel looked up. “Go, certainly!”
he said, and there was a touch of the old kindliness
in his voice that he tried to restrain. “And
as soon as possible! I hope you will find a more
reassuring state of affairs when you get there.”

He held out the telegram. Monck made a movement
to take it, but as he did so the tension in which
he gripped himself suddenly gave way. He blundered
forward, his hands upon the table.

“She will die,” he said, and there was
utter despair in his tone. “She is probably
dead already.”

Sir Reginald took him by the arm. His face held
nought but kindliness, which he made no attempt to
hide. “Sit down a minute!” he said.
“Here’s a chair! Just a minute.
Sit down and get your wind! What is this message?
May I read it?”

He murmured something to Major Burton who turned sharply
and went out. Monck sank heavily into the chair
and leaned upon the table, his head in his hands.
He was shaking all over, as if seized with an ague.

Sir Reginald read the message, standing beside him,
a hand upon his shoulder. “Stella desperately
ill. Come. Ralston,” were the words
it contained.

He laid the paper upon the table, and looked across
at the Colonel. The latter nodded slightly, almost
imperceptibly.

Monck spoke without moving. “She is dead,”
he said. “My God! She is dead!”
And then, under his breath, “After all,—­counting
me out—­it’s best—­it’s
best. I couldn’t ask for anything better
at this devils’ game. Someone’s got
to die.”

He checked himself abruptly, and again a terrible
shivering seized him.

Monck raised himself with a slow, blind movement.
“Did you ever dice with the devil?” he
said. “Stake your honour—­stake
all you’d got—­to save a woman from
hell? And then lose—­my God—­lose
all—­even—­even—­the
woman?” Again he checked himself. “I’m
talking like a damned fool. Stop me, someone!
I’ve come through hell-fire and it’s scorched
away my senses. I never thought I should blab
like this.”

“It’s all right,” Sir Reginald said,
and in his voice was steady reassurance. “You’re
with friends. Get a hold on yourself! Don’t
say any more!”

“Ah!” Monck drew a deep breath and seemed
to come to himself. He lifted a face of appalling
whiteness and looked at Sir Reginald. “You’re
very good, sir,” he said. “I was
knocked out for the moment. I’m all right
now.”

He made as if he would rise, but Sir Reginald checked
him. “Wait a moment longer! Major
Burton will be back directly.”

Page 139

“Major Burton?” questioned Monck.

“I sent him for some brandy to steady your nerves,”
Sir Reginald said.

“You’re very good,” Monck said again.
He leaned his head on his hand and sat silent.

Major Burton returned with Tommy hovering anxiously
behind him. The boy hesitated a little upon entering,
but the Colonel called him in.

“You had better see the message too,”
he said. “Your sister is ill. Captain
Monck is going to her.”

Tommy read the message with one eye upon Monck, who
drank the brandy Burton brought and in a moment stood
up.

“I am sorry to have made such a fool of myself,
sir,” he said to Sir Reginald, with a faint,
grim smile. “I shall not forget your kindness,
though I hope you will forget my idiocy.”

Sir Reginald looked at him closely for a second.
His grizzled face was stern. Yet he held out
his hand.

“Good-bye, Captain Monck!” was all he
said.

Monck stiffened. The smile passed from his face,
leaving it inscrutable, granite-like in its composure.
It was as the donning of a mask.

“Good-bye, sir!” he said briefly, as he
shook hands.

Tommy moved to his side impulsively. He did not
utter a word, but as they went out his hand was pushed
through Monck’s arm in the old confidential
fashion, the old eager affection was shining in his
eyes.

“He has one staunch friend, anyhow,” Sir
Reginald muttered to the Colonel.

“Yes,” the Colonel answered gravely.
“He has done a good deal for young Denvers.
It’s the boy’s turn to make good now.
There isn’t much left him besides.”

“Poor devil!” said Sir Reginald.

CHAPTER II

OUT OF THE DARKNESS

“You said Everard was coming. Why doesn’t
he come? It’s very dark—­it’s
very dark! Can he have missed the way?”

Feebly, haltingly, the words seemed to wander through
the room, breaking a great silence as it were with
immense effort. Mrs. Ralston bent over the bed
and whispered hushingly that it was all right, all
right, Everard would be there soon.

“But why does he take so long?” murmured
Stella. “It’s getting darker every
minute. And it’s so steep. I keep slipping—­slipping.
I know he would hold me up.” And then after
a moment, “Oh, Mary, am I dying? I believe
I am. But—­he—­wouldn’t
let me die.”

“But it’s so dreadfully dark,” Stella
said restlessly. “I shouldn’t mind
if I could see the way. But I can’t—­I
can’t.”

“Be patient, darling!” said Mrs. Ralston
very tenderly. “It will be lighter presently.”

It was growing very late. She herself was listening
for every sound, hoping against hope to hear the firm
quiet step of the man who alone could still her charge’s
growing distress.

Page 140

“It would be so dreadful to miss him,”
moaned Stella. “I have waited so long.
Mary, why don’t they light a lamp?”

A shaded lamp was burning on the table by the bed.
Mrs. Ralston turned and lifted the shade. But
Stella shook her head with a weary discontent.

“That doesn’t help. It’s in
the desert that I mean—­so that he shan’t
miss me when he comes.”

“He cannot miss you, darling,” Mrs. Ralston
assured her; but in her own heart she doubted.
For the doctor had told her that he did not think she
would live through the night.

Again she strained her ears to listen. She had
certainly heard a sound outside the door; but it might
be only Peter who, she knew, crouched there, alert
for any service.

It was Peter; but it was not Peter only, for even
as she listened, the handle of the door turned softly
and someone entered. She looked up eagerly and
saw the doctor.

He was a thin, grey man for whom she entertained privately
a certain feeling of contempt. She was so sure
her own husband would have somehow managed the case
better. He came to the bedside, and looked at
Stella, looked closely; then turned to her friend
watching beside her.

“I wonder if it would disturb her to see her
husband for a moment,” he said.

Mrs. Ralston suppressed a start with difficulty.
“Is he here?” she whispered.

“Just arrived,” he murmured back, and
turned again to look at Stella who lay motionless
with closed eyes, scarcely seeming to breathe.

Mrs. Ralston’s whisper smote the silence, and
it was the doctor’s turn to start. “Send
him in at once!” she said.

So insistent was her command that he stood up as if
he had been prodded into action. Mrs. Ralston
was on her feet. She waved an urgent hand.

“Go and get him!” she ordered almost fiercely.
“It’s the only chance left. Go and
fetch him!”

He looked at her doubtfully for a second, then, impelled
by an authority that overrode every scruple, he turned
in silence and tiptoed from the room.

Mrs. Ralston’s eyes followed him with scorn.
How was it some doctors managed—­notwithstanding
all their experience—­to be such hopeless
idiots?

The soft opening of the door again a few seconds later
banished her irritation. She turned with shining
welcome in her look, and met Monck with outstretched
hands.

“You’re in time,” she said.

He gripped her hands hard, but he scarcely looked
at her. In a moment he was bending over the bed.

“Stella girl! Stella!” he said.

“Everard!” The weak voice thrilled like
a loosened harp-string, and the man’s dark face
flashed into sudden passionate tenderness.

He went down upon his knees beside the bed and gathered
her to his breast. She clung to him feebly, her
lips turned to his.

Page 141

He held her closer and closer to his heart, so that
its fierce throbbing beat against her own. “You
shan’t die,” he said, “you can’t
die—­with me here.”

She laughed a little, sobbingly. “You saved
Tommy—­twice over. I knew you would
save me—­if you came in time. Oh, darling,
how I have wanted you! It’s been—­so
dark and terrible.”

“But you held on!” Monck’s voice
was very low; it came with a manifest effort.
He was holding her to his breast as if he could never
let her go.

“Yes, I held on. I knew—­I knew—­how—­how
it would hurt you—­to find me gone.”
Her trembling hands moved fondly about his head and
finally clasped his neck. “It’s all
right now,” she said, with a sigh of deep content.

Monck’s lips pressed hers again and again, and
Mrs. Ralston went away to the window to hide her tears.
“Please, God, don’t separate them now!”
she whispered.

It was many minutes later that Stella spoke again,
softly, into Monck’s ear. “Everard—­darling
husband—­the baby—­our baby—­don’t
you—­wouldn’t you like to see it?”

“The baby!” He spoke as if startled.
Somehow he had concluded from the first that the baby
would be dead, and the rapture of finding her still
living had driven the thought of everything else from
his mind.

He spoke over his shoulder to Mrs. Ralston, his voice
oddly cold, almost reluctant. “Would you
be good enough to bring the baby in?”

She turned at once, smiling upon him shakily.
But his dark face remained wholly inscrutable, wholly
unresponsive. There was something about him that
smote her with a curious chill, but she told herself
that he was worn out with hard travel and anxiety
as she went from the room to comply with his curt
request.

Lying against his shoulder, Stella whispered a few
halting sentences. “It—­happened
so suddenly. The Rajah drives so fiercely—­like
a man possessed. And the car skidded on the hill.
Netta Ermsted was in it, and she screamed, and I—­I
was terrified because Tessa—­Tessa—­brave
mite—­sprang in front of me. I don’t
know what she thought she could do. I think partly
she was angry, and lost her head. And she meant—­to
help—­to protect me—­somehow.
After that, I fainted—­and when I came round,
they had brought me back here. That was ever so
long ago.” She shuddered convulsively.
“I’ve been through a lot since then.”

Monck’s teeth closed upon his lip. He had
not suspected an accident.

Tremulously Stella went on. “It—­was
so much too soon. I was—­dreadfully—­afraid
for the poor wee baby. But the doctor said—­the
doctor said—­it was all right—­only
small. And oh, Everard—­” her
voice thrilled again with a quivering joy—­“it
is a boy. I so wanted—­a son—­for
you.”

“God bless you!” he said almost inarticulately,
and kissed her white face again burningly, even with
violence. She smiled at his intensity, though
it made her gasp. “I know—­I know—­you
will be great,” she said. “And—­your
son—­must carry on your greatness. He
shall learn to love—­the Empire—­as
you do. We will teach him together—­you
and I.”

Page 142

“Ah!” Monck said, and drew the hard breath
of a man struggling in deep waters.

Mrs. Ralston returned softly with a white bundle in
her arms, and Stella’s hold relaxed. Her
heavy lids brightened eagerly.

“My dear,” Mrs. Ralston said, “the
doctor has commanded me to turn your husband out immediately.
He must just peep at the darling baby and go.”

“Tell him to go himself—­to blazes!”
said Monck forcibly, and then reached up, still curiously
grim to Mrs. Ralston’s observing eyes, and,
without rising from his knees, took his child into
his arms.

He laid it against the mother’s breast, and
tenderly uncovered the tiny, sleeping face.

“Oh, Everard!” she said.

And Mrs. Ralston turned away with a little sob.
She did not believe any longer that Stella would die.
The sweet, thrilling happiness of her voice seemed
somehow to drive out the very thought of death.
She had never in her life seen any one so supremely
happy. But yet—­though she was reassured—­there
was something else in the atmosphere that disturbed
her. She could not have said wherefore, but she
was sorry for Monck—­deeply, poignantly
sorry. She was certain, with that inner conviction
that needs no outer evidence, that it was more than
weariness and the strain of anxiety that had drawn
those deep lines about his eyes and mouth. He
looked to her like a man who had been smitten down
in the pride of his strength, and who knew his case
to be hopeless.

As for Monck, he went through his ordeal unflinching,
suffering as few men are called upon to suffer and
hiding it away without a quiver. All through
the hours of his journeying, he had been prepared to
face—­he had actually expected—–­
the worst. All through those hours he had battled
to reach her indeed, straining every faculty, resisting
with almost superhuman strength every obstacle that
arose to bar his progress. But he had not thought
to find her, and throughout the long-drawn-out effort
he had carried in his locked heart the knowledge that
if when he came at last to her bedside he found her—­this
woman whom he loved with all the force of his silent
soul—­white and cold in death, it would
be the best fate that he could wish her, the best thing
that could possibly happen, so far as mortal sight
could judge, for either.

But so it had not been. At the very Gate of Death
she had waited for his coming, and now he knew in
his heart that she would return. The love between
them was drawing her, and the man’s heart in
him battled fiercely to rejoice even while wrung with
the anguish of that secret knowledge.

He hardly knew how he went through those moments which
to her were such pure ecstasy. The blood was
beating wildly in his brain, and he thought of that
devils’ tattoo on the roof at Udalkhand when
first that dreadful knowledge had sprung upon him
like an evil thing out of the night. But he held
himself in an iron grip; he forced his mind to clearness.
Even to himself he would not seem to be aware of the
agony that tore him.

Page 143

They whispered together for a while over the baby’s
head, but he never remembered afterwards what passed
or how long he knelt there. Only at last there
came a silence that drifted on and on and he knew that
Stella was asleep.

Later Mrs. Ralston stooped over him and took the baby
away, and he laid his head down upon the pillow by
Stella’s and wished with all his soul that the
Gate before which her feet had halted would open to
them both.

Someone came up behind them, and stood for a few seconds
looking down upon them. He was aware of a presence,
but he knelt on without stirring—­as one
kneeling entranced in a sacred place. Then two
hands he knew grasped him firmly by the shoulders,
raising him; he looked up half-dazed into his brother’s
face.

The words roused him. The old sardonic smile
showed for a moment about his lips. He faint!
But he had not slept for two nights. That would
account for that curious top-heavy feeling that possessed
him. He suffered Bernard to help him up,—­good
old Bernard who had watched over him like a mother
refusing flatly to remain behind, waiting upon him
hand and foot at every turn.

“You come into the next room!” he whispered.
“You shall be called immediately if she wakes
and wants you. But you’ll crumple up if
you don’t rest.”

There was truth in the words. Everard realized
it as he went from the room, leaning blindly upon
the stout, supporting arm. His weariness hung
upon him like an overwhelming weight.

He submitted himself almost mechanically to his brother’s
ordering, feeling as if he moved in a dream.
As in a dream also he saw Peter at the door move,
noiseless as a shadow, to assist him on the other side.
And he tried to laugh off his weakness, but the laugh
stuck in his throat.

Then he found himself in a chair drinking a stiff
mixture of brandy and water, again at Bernard’s
behest, while Bernard stood over him, watching with
the utmost kindness in his blue eyes.

The spirit steadied him. He came to himself,
sat up slowly, and motioned Peter from the room.
He was his own master again. He turned to his
brother with a smile.

“You’re a friend in need, St. Bernard.
That dose has done me good. Open the window,
old fellow, will you? Let’s have some air!”

Bernard flung the window wide, and the warm wet air
blew in laden with the fragrance of the teeming earth.
Everard turned his face to it, drawing in great breaths.
The dawn was breaking.

“She is better?” Bernard questioned, after
a few moments.

“Yes. I believe she has turned the corner.”
Everard spoke without turning. His eyes were
fixed.

“Thank God!” said Bernard gently.

Everard’s right hand made a curious movement.
It was as if it closed upon a weapon. “You
can do that part,” he said, and he spoke with
constraint. “But you’d do it in any
case. It’s a way you’ve got.
See the light breaking over there? It’s
like a sword—­turning all ways.”
He rose with an obvious effort and passed his hand
across his eyes. “What of you, man?”
he said. “Have they been looking after you?”

Page 144

“Oh, never mind me!” Bernard rejoined.
“Have something to eat and turn in! Yes,
of course I’ll join you with pleasure.”
He clapped an affectionate hand upon his brother’s
shoulder. “It’s a boy, I’m told.
Old fellow, I congratulate you—­may he be
a blessing to you all your lives! I’ll
drink his health if it isn’t too early.”

Everard broke into a brief, discordant laugh.
“You’d better go to church, St. Bernard,”
he said, “and pray for us!”

He swung away abruptly with the words and crossed
the room. The crystal-clear rays of the new day
smote full upon him as he moved, and Bernard saw for
the first time that his hair was streaked with grey.

CHAPTER III

PRINCESS BLUEBELL

To Bernard, sprawling at his ease with a pipe on the
verandah some hours later, the appearance of a small
girl with bare brown legs and a very abbreviated white
muslin frock, hugging an unwilling mongoose to her
breast, came as a surprise; for she entered as one
who belonged to the establishment.

“Who are you, please?” she demanded imperiously,
halting before him while she disentangled the unfortunate
Scooter’s rebellious legs from her hair.

Bernard sat up and removed his pipe. Meeting
eyes of the darkest, intensest blue that he had ever
seen, he gave her appropriate greeting,

“Good morning, Princess Bluebell! I am
a humble, homeless beggar, at present living upon
the charity of my brother, Captain Monck.”

She came a step nearer. “Why do you call
me that? You are not Captain Monck’s brother
really, are you?”

He spread out his hands with a deprecating gesture.
“I never contradict royal ladies, Princess,
but I have always been taught to believe so.”

“Why do you call me Princess?” she asked,
halting between suspicion and gratification.

“Because it is quite evident that you are one.
There is a—­bossiness about you that proclaims
the fact aloud.” Bernard smiled upon her—­the
smile of open goodfellowship. “Beggars always
know princesses when they see them,” he said.

She scrutinized him severely for a moment or two,
then suddenly melted into a gleaming, responsive smile
that illuminated her little pale face like a shaft
of sunlight. She came close to him, and very graciously
proffered Scooter for a caress. “You needn’t
be afraid of him. He doesn’t bite,”
she said.

“I suppose he is a bewitched prince, is he?”
asked Bernard, as he stroked the furry little animal.

The great blue eyes were still fixed upon him.
“No,” said Tessa, after a thoughtful moment
or two. “He’s only a mongoose.
But I think you are a bewitched prince. You’re
so big. And they always pretend to be beggars
too,” she added.

“And the princesses always fall in love with
them before they find out,” said Bernard, looking
quizzical.

Tessa frowned a little. “I don’t
think falling in love is a very nice game,”
she said. “I’ve seen a lot of it.”

Page 145

“Have you indeed?” Bernard’s eyes
screwed up for a moment, but were hastily restored
to an expression of becoming gravity. “I
don’t know much about it myself,” he said.
“You see, I’m an old bachelor.”

“Haven’t you—­ever—­been
in love?” asked Tessa incredulously.

He held out his hand to her. “Yes, I’m
in love at the present moment—­quite the
worst sort too—­love at first sight.”

“You are rather old, aren’t you?”
said Tessa dispassionately, but she laid her hand
in his notwithstanding.

“Quite old enough to be kissed,” he assured
her, drawing her gently to him. “Shall
I tell you a secret? I’m rather fond of
kissing little girls.”

Tessa went into the circle of his arm with complete
confidence. “I don’t mind kissing
white men,” she said, and held up her red lips.
“But I wouldn’t kiss an Indian—­not
even Peter, and he’s a darling.”

“How is my darling Aunt Stella this morning?”
demanded Tessa suddenly. “You made me forget.
Ayah said she would be all right, but Ayah
says just anything. Is she all right?”

“She is better,” Bernard said. “But
wait a minute!” He caught her arm as she made
an impetuous movement to leave him. “I believe
she’s asleep just now. You don’t
want to wake her?”

Tessa turned upon him swiftly—­wide horror
in her eyes. “Is that your way of telling
me she is dead?” she said in a whisper.

“No, no, child!” Bernard’s reply
came with instant reassurance. “But she
has been—­she still is—­ill.
She was upset, you know. Someone in a car startled
her.”

“I know I was there.” Tessa came
close to him again, speaking in a tense undertone;
her eyes gleamed almost black. “It was the
Rajah that frightened her so—­the Rajah—­and
my mother. I’m never going to ask God to
bless her again. I—­hate her! And
him too!”

There was such concentrated vindictiveness in her
words that even Bernard, who had looked upon many
bitter things, was momentarily startled.

“I think God would be rather sorry to hear you
say that,” he remarked, after a moment.
“He likes little girls to pray for their mothers.”

“I don’t see why,” said Tessa rebelliously,
“not if He hasn’t given them good ones.
Mine isn’t good. She’s very, very
bad.”

“Then there’s all the more reason to pray
for her,” said Bernard. “It’s
the least you can do. But I don’t think
you ought to say that of your mother, you know, even
if you think it. It isn’t loyal.”

“What’s loyal?” said Tessa.

“Loyalty is being true to any one—­not
telling tales about them. It’s about the
only thing I learnt at school worth knowing.”
Bernard smiled at her in his large way. “Never
tell tales of anyone, Princess!” he said.
“It isn’t cricket. Now look here!
I’ve an awfully interesting piece of news for
you. Come quite close, and I’ll whisper.
Do you know—­last night—­when
Aunt Stella was lying ill, something happened.
An angel came to see her.”

Page 146

“An angel!” Tessa’s eyes grew round
with wonder, and bluer than the bluest bluebell.
“What was he like?” she whispered breathlessly.
“Did you see him?”

“No, I didn’t. I think it was a she,”
Bernard whispered back. “And what do you
think she brought? But you’ll never guess.”

“Yes. He and I got here in the night two
or three hours after the baby arrived. He was
very tired, poor chap. He is resting.”

“And the baby?” breathed Tessa.

“Mrs. Ralston is taking care of the baby.
I expect it’s asleep,” said Bernard.
“So we’ll keep very quiet.”

“But she’ll let me see it, won’t
she?” said Tessa anxiously.

“No doubt she will, Princess. But I shouldn’t
disturb them yet. It’s early you know.”

“Mightn’t I just go in and kiss Uncle
Everard?” pleaded Tessa. “I love
him so very much. I’m sure he wouldn’t
mind.”

“Let him rest a bit longer!” advised Bernard.
“He is worn out. Sit down here, on the
arm of my chair, and tell me about yourself! Where
have you come from?”

Tessa jerked her head sideways. “Down there.
We live at The Grand Stand. We’ve been
there a long time now, nearly ever since Daddy went
away. He’s in Heaven. A budmash
shot him in the jungle. Mother made a great fuss
about it at the time, but she doesn’t care now
she can go motoring with the Rajah. He is a nasty
beast,” said Tessa with emphasis. “I
always did hate him. And he frightened my darling
Aunt Stella at the gate yesterday. I—­could
have—­killed him for it.”

“What did he do?” asked Bernard.

“I don’t know quite; but the car twisted
round on the hill, and Aunt Stella thought it was
going to upset. I tried to take care of her, but
we were both nearly run over. He’s a horrid
man!” Tessa declared. “He caught
hold of me the other day because I got between him
and Mother when they were sitting smoking together.
And I bit him.” Vindictive satisfaction
sounded in Tessa’s voice. “I bit him
hard. He soon let go again.”

“Wasn’t he angry?” asked Bernard.

Page 147

“Oh, yes, very angry. So was Mother.
She told him he might whip me if he liked. Fancy
being whipped by a native!” High scorn thrilled
in the words. “But he didn’t.
He laughed in his slithery way and showed his teeth
like a jackal and said—­and said—­I
was too pretty to be whipped.” Tessa ground
her teeth upon the memory. It was evidently even-more
humiliating than the suggested punishment. “And
then he kissed me—­he kissed me—­”
she shuddered at the nauseating recollection—­“and
let me go.”

Bernard was listening attentively. His eyes were
less kindly than usual. They had a steely look.
“I should keep out of his way, if I were you,”
he said.

“I will—­I do!” declared Tessa.
“But I do hate the way he goes on with Mother.
He’d never have dared if Daddy had been here.”

“He is evidently a bounder,” said Bernard.

They sat for some time on the verandah, growing pleasantly
intimate, till presently Peter came out with an early
breakfast for Bernard. He invited Tessa to join
him, which she consented to do with alacrity.

“We must find Scooter afterwards,” she
said, as she proudly poured out his coffee. “And
then perhaps, if I keep good, Aunt Mary will let me
see the baby.”

“Wonder if you will manage to keep good till
then,” observed a voice behind them.

She turned with a squeak of delight and sprang to
meet Everard.

He was looking haggard in the morning light, but he
smiled upon her in a way she had never seen before,
and he stooped and kissed her with a tenderness that
amazed her.

“Stella tells me you were very brave yesterday,”
he said.

“Was I? When?” Tessa opened her blue
eyes to their widest extent. “Oh, I was
only—­angry,” she said then. “Darling
Aunt Stella was frightened.”

He patted her shoulder. “You meant to take
care of her, so I’m grateful all the same,”
he said.

Tessa clung to his arm. “I’d like
to come and take care of her always,” she said,
rather wistfully. “I can easily be spared,
Uncle Everard. And I’m really not nearly
so naughty as I used to be.”

He smiled at the words, but did not respond.
“Where’s Scooter?” he said.

They spent some time hunting for him, but it was left
to Peter finally to unearth him, for in the middle
of the search Mrs. Ralston came softly out upon the
verandah with the baby in her arms, and at once all
Tessa’s thoughts were centred upon the new arrival.
She had never before seen anything so tiny, so red,
or so utterly beautiful!

Bernard left his breakfast to join the circle of admirers,
and when the doctor arrived a few minutes later he
was in triumphant possession of the small bundle that
held them all spellbound. He knew how to handle
a baby, and was extremely proud of the accomplishment.

It was not till two days later, however, that he was
admitted to see the mother. She had turned the
corner, they said, but she was terribly weak.
Yet, as soon as she heard of the presence of her brother-in-law,
she insisted upon seeing him.

Page 148

Everard brought him in to her, but for the first time
in her life she dismissed him when the introduction
was effected.

“We shall get on better alone,” she said,
with a smile. “You come back—­afterwards.”

So Everard withdrew, and Bernard sat down by her side,
his big hand holding hers.

“That is nice,” she said, her pale face
turned to him. “I have been wanting to
know you ever since Everard first told me of you.”

He bent with a little smile and kissed the slender
fingers he held. “Then the desire has been
mutual,” he said.

“Thank you.” Stella’s eyes
were fixed upon his face. “I was afraid,”
she said, with slight hesitation, “that you might
think—­when you saw Everard—­that
marriage hadn’t altogether agreed with him.”

Bernard’s kindly blue eyes met hers with absolute
directness. “No, I shouldn’t have
thought that,” he said. “But I see
a change in him of course. He is growing old
much too fast. What is it? Overwork?”

“I don’t know.” She still spoke
with hesitation. “I think it is a good
deal—­anxiety.”

“Ah!” Bernard’s hand closed very
strongly upon hers. “He is not the only
person that suffers from that complaint, I think.”

She smiled rather wanly. “I ought not to
worry. It’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“It’s unnecessary,” he said.
“And it’s a handicap to progress.
But it’s difficult not to when things go wrong,
I admit. We need to keep a very tight hold on
faith. And even then—­”

“Yes, even then—­” Stella said,
her lips quivering a little—­“when
the one beloved is in danger, who can be untroubled?”

“We are all in the same keeping,” said
Bernard gently. “I think that’s worth
remembering. If we can trust ourselves to God,
we ought to be able to trust even the one beloved
to His care.”

Stella’s eyes were full of tears. “I
am afraid I don’t know Him well enough to trust
Him like that,” she said.

Bernard leant towards her. “My dear,”
he said, “it is only by faith that you can ever
come to knowledge. You have to trust without
definitely knowing. Knowledge—­that
inner certainty—­comes afterwards, always
afterwards. You can’t get it for yourself.
You can only pray for it, and prepare the ground.”

Her fingers pressed his feebly. “I wonder,”
she said, “if you have ever known what it was
to walk in darkness.”

Bernard smiled. “Yes, I have floundered
pretty deep in my time,” he said. “There’s
only one thing for it, you know; just to keep on till
the light comes. You’ll find, when the
lamp shines across the desert at last, that you’re
not so far out of the track after all—­if
you’re only keeping on. That’s the
main thing to remember.”

“Ah!” Stella sighed. “I believe
you could help me a lot.”

“Delighted to try,” said Bernard.

But she shook her head. “No, not now, not
yet. I want you—­to take care of Everard
for me.”

Page 149

“Can’t he take care of himself?”
questioned Bernard. “I thought I had taught
him to be fairly independent.”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” she said.
“It is—­it is—­India.”

He leaned nearer to her, the smile gone from his eyes.
“I thought so,” he said. “You
needn’t be afraid to speak out to me. I
am discretion itself, especially where he is concerned.
What has India been doing to him?”

With a faint gesture she motioned him nearer still.
Her face was very pale, but resolution was shining
in her eyes. “Don’t let us be disturbed!”
she whispered. “And I—­I will
tell you—­all I know.”

CHAPTER IV

THE SERPENT IN THE DESERT

The battalion was ordered back to Kurrumpore for the
winter months, ostensibly to go into a camp of exercise,
though whispers of some deeper motive for the move
were occasionally heard. Markestan, though outwardly
calm and well-behaved, was not regarded with any great
confidence by the Government, so it was said, though,
officially, no one had the smallest suspicion of danger.

It was with mixed feelings that Stella returned at
length to The Green Bungalow, nearly three months
after her baby’s birth. During that time
she had seen a good deal of her brother-in-law, who,
nothing daunted by the discomforts of the journey,
went to and fro several times between Bhulwana and
the Plains. They had become close friends, and
Stella had grown to regard his presence as a safeguard
and protection against the nameless evils that surrounded
Everard, though she could not have said wherefore.

He it was who, with Peter’s help, prepared the
bungalow for her coming. It had been standing
empty all through the hot weather and the rains.
The compound was a mass of overgrown verdure, and the
bungalow itself was in some places thick with fungus.

When Stella came to it, however, all the most noticeable
traces of neglect had been removed. The place
was scrubbed clean. The ragged roses had been
trained along the verandah-trellis, and fresh Indian
matting had been laid down everywhere.

The garden was still a wilderness, but Bernard declared
that he would have it in order before many weeks had
passed. It was curious how, with his very limited
knowledge of natives and their ways, he managed to
extract the most willing labour from them. Peter
the Great smiled with gratified pride whenever he
gave him an order, and all the other servants seemed
to entertain a similar veneration for the big, blue-eyed
sahib who was never heard to speak in anger
or impatience, and yet whose word was one which somehow
no one found it possible to disregard.

Tommy had become fond of him also. He was wont
to say that Bernard was the most likable fellow he
had ever met. An indefinable barrier had grown
up between him and his brother-in-law, which, desperately
though he had striven against it, had made the old
easy intercourse impossible. Bernard was in a
fashion the link between them. Strangely they
were always more intimate in his presence than when
alone, less conscious of unknown ground, of reserves
that could not be broached.

Page 150

Strive as he might, Tommy could not forget that evening
at the mess—­the historic occasion, as he
had lightly named it—­when like an evil magic
at work he had witnessed the smirching of his hero’s
honour. He had sought to bury the matter deep,
to thrust it out of all remembrance, but the evil
wrought was too subtle and too potent. It reared
itself against him and would not be trampled down.

Had any of his brother-officers dared to mention the
affair to him, he would have been furious, would strenuously
have defended that which apparently his friend did
not deem it worth his while to defend. But no
one ever spoke of it. It dwelt among them, a shameful
thing, ignored yet ever present.

Everard came and went as before, only more reticent,
more grim, more unapproachable than he had ever been
in the old days. His utter indifference to the
cold courtesy accorded him was beyond all scorn.
He simply did not see when men avoided him. He
was supremely unaware of the coldness that made Tommy
writhe in impotent rebellion. He had never mixed
very freely with his fellows. Upon Tommy alone
had he bestowed his actual friendship, and to Tommy
alone did he now display any definite change of front.
His demeanour towards the boy was curiously gentle.
He never treated him confidentially or spoke of intimate
things. That invincible barrier which Tommy strove
so hard to ignore, he seemed to take for granted.
But he was invariably kind in all his dealings with
him, as if he realized that Tommy had lost the one
possession he prized above all others and were sorry
for him.

Whatever Tommy’s mood, and his moods varied
considerably, he was never other than patient with
him, bearing with him as he would never have borne
in the byegone happier days of their good comradeship.
He never rebuked him, never offered him advice, never
attempted in any fashion to test the influence that
yet remained to him. And his very forbearance
hurt Tommy more poignantly than any open rupture or
even tacit avoidance could have hurt him. There
were times when he would have sacrificed all he had,
even down to his own honour, to have forced an understanding
with Monck, to have compelled him to yield up his secret.
But whenever he braced himself to ask for an explanation,
he found himself held back. There was a boundary
he could not pass, a force relentless and irresistible,
that checked him at the very outset. He lacked
the strength to batter down the iron will that opposed
him behind that unaccustomed gentleness. He could
only bow miserably to the unspoken word of command
that kept him at a distance.

He was too loyal ever to discuss the matter with Bernard,
though he often wondered how the latter regarded his
brother’s attitude. At least there was
no strain in their relationship though he was fairly
convinced that Everard had not taken Bernard into
his confidence. This fact held a subtle solace
for him, for it meant that Bernard, who was as open
as the day, was content to be in the dark, and satisfied
that it held nothing of an evil nature. This
unquestioning faith on Bernard’s part was Tommy’s
one ray of light. He knew instinctively that Bernard
was not a man to compromise with evil. He carried
his banner that all might see. He was not ashamed
to confess his Master before all men, and Tommy mutely
admired him for it.

Page 151

He marked with pleasure the intimacy that existed
between this man and his sister. Like Stella,
though in a different sense, he had grown imperceptibly
to look upon him as a safeguard. He was a sure
antidote to nervous forebodings. The advent of
the baby also gave him keen delight. Tommy was
a lover of all things youthful. He declared he
had never felt so much at home in India before.

Peter also was almost as much in the baby’s
company as was its ayah. The administration
of the bottle was Peter’s proudest privilege,
and he would walk soft-footed to and fro for any length
of time carrying the infant in his arms. Stella
was always content when the baby was in his charge.
Her confidence in Peter’s devotion was unbounded.
The child was not very strong and needed great care.
The care Peter lavished upon it was as tender as her
own. There was something of a feud between him
and the ayah, but no trace of this was ever
apparent in her presence. As for the baby, he
seemed to love Peter better than any one else, and
was generally at his best when in his arms.

The Green Bungalow became a favourite meeting-place
with the ladies of the station, somewhat, to Stella’s
dismay. Lady Harriet swept in at all hours to
hold inspections of the infant’s progress and
give advice, and everyone who had ever had a baby
seemed to have some fresh warning or word of instruction
to bestow.

They were all very kind to her. She received
many invitations to tea, and smiled over her sudden
popularity. But—­it dawned upon her
when, she had been about three weeks in the station—­no
one but the Ralstons seemed to think of asking her
and her husband to dine. She thought but little
of the omission at first. Evening entertainments
held but slight attraction for her, but as time went
on and Christmas festivities drew near, she could
not avoid noticing that practically every invitation
she received was worded in so strictly personal a
fashion that there could be no doubt that Everard
was not included in it. Bernard was often asked
separately, but he generally refused on the score of
the evening being his best working time.

Also, after a while, she could not fail to notice
that Tommy was no longer at his ease in Everard’s
presence. The old careless camaraderie
between them was gone, and she missed it at first vaguely,
later with an uneasiness that she could not stifle.
There was something in Tommy’s attitude towards
his friend that hurt her. She knew by instinct
that the boy was not happy. She wondered at first
if there could be some quarrel between them, but decided
in face of Everard’s unvarying kindness to Tommy
that this could not be.

Another thing struck her as time went on. Everard
always checked all talk of his prospects. He
was so repressive on the subject that she could not
possibly pursue it, and she came at last to conclude
that his hope of preferment had vanished like a mirage
in the desert.

Page 152

He was very good to her, but his absences continued
in the old unaccountable way, and her dread of Rustam
Karin, which Bernard’s presence had in a measure
allayed, revived again till at times it was almost
more than she could bear.

She did not talk of it any further to Bernard.
She had told him all her fears, and she knew he was
on guard, knew instinctively that she could count
upon him though he never reverted to the matter.
Somehow she could not bring herself to speak to him
of the strange avoidance of her husband that was being
practised by the rest of the station either. She
endured it dumbly, holding herself more and more aloof
in consequence of it as the days went by. Ever
since the days of her own ostracism she had placed
a very light price upon social popularity. The
love of such women as Mary Ralston—­and
the love of little Tessa—­were of infinitely
greater value in her eyes.

Tessa and her mother were once more guests in the
Ralstons’ bungalow. Netta had desired to
stay at the new hotel which—­as also at
Udalkland—­native enterprise had erected
near the Club; but Mrs. Ralston had vetoed this plan
with much firmness, and after a little petulant argument
Netta had given in. She did not greatly care for
staying with the Ralstons. Mary was a dear good
soul of course, but inclined to be interfering, and
now that the zest of life was returning to Netta, her
desire for her own way was beginning to reassert itself.
However, the Ralstons’ bungalow also was in
close proximity to the Club, and in consideration
of this she consented to take up her abode there.
Her days of seclusion were over. She had emerged
from them with a fevered craving for excitement of
any description mingled with that odd defiance that
had characterized her almost ever since her husband’s
death. She had never kept any very great control
upon her tongue, but now it was positively venomous.
She seemed to bear a grudge against all the world.

Tessa, with her beloved Scooter, went her own way
as of yore, and spent most of her time at The Green
Bungalow where there was always someone to welcome
her. She arrived there one day in a state of great
indignation, Scooter as usual clinging to her hair
and trying his utmost to escape.

Like a whirlwind she burst upon Stella, who was sitting
with her baby in the French window of her room.

“Aunt Stella,” she cried breathlessly,
“Mother says she’s sure you and Uncle
Everard won’t go to the officers’ picnic
at Khanmulla this year. It isn’t true,
is it, Aunt Stella? You will go, and you’ll
take me with you, won’t you?”

The officers’ picnic at Khanmulla! The
words called up a flood of memory in Stella’s
heart. She looked at Tessa, the smile of welcome
still upon her face; but she did not see her.
She was standing once more in the moonlight, listening
to the tread of a man’s feet on the path below
her, waiting—­waiting with a throbbing heart—­for
the sound of a man’s quiet voice.

Page 153

Tessa came nearer to her, looking at her with an odd
species of speculation. “Aunt Stella,”
she said, “that wasn’t—­all—­Mother
said. She made me very, very angry. Shall
I tell you—­would you like to know—­why?”

Stella’s eyes ceased to gaze into distance.
She looked at the child. Some vague misgiving
stirred within her. It was the instinct of self-defence
that moved her to say, “I don’t want to
listen to any silly gossip, Tessa darling.”

“It isn’t silly!” declared Tessa.
“It’s much worse than that. And I’m
going to tell you, cos I think I’d better.
She said that everybody says that Uncle Everard won’t
go to the picnic on Christmas Eve cos he’s ashamed
to look people in the face. I said it wasn’t
true.” Very stoutly Tessa brought out the
assertion; then, a moment later, with a queer sidelong
glance into Stella’s face, “It isn’t
true, dear, is it?”

Ashamed! Everard ashamed! Stella’s
hands clasped each other unconsciously about the sleeping
baby on her lap. Strangely her own voice came
to her while she was not even aware of uttering the
words. “Why should he be ashamed?”

Tessa’s eyes were dark with mystery. She
pressed against Stella with a small protective gesture.
“Darling, she said horrid things, but they aren’t
true any of them. If Uncle Everard had been there,
she wouldn’t have dared. I told her so.”

With an effort Stella unclasped her hands. She
put her arm around the little girl. “Tell
me what they are saying, Tessa,” she said.
“I think with you that I had better know.”

Tessa suffered Scooter to escape in order to hug Stella
close. “They are saying things about when
he went on leave just after you married Captain Dacre,
how he said he wanted to go to England and didn’t
go, and how—­how—­” Tessa
checked herself abruptly. “It came out at
mess one night,” she ended.

A faint smile of relief shone, in Stella’s eyes.
“But I knew that, Tessa,” she said.
“He told me himself. Is that all?”

“You knew?” Tessa’s eyes shone with
sudden triumph. “Oh, then do tell them
what he was doing and stop their horrid talking!
It was Mrs. Burton began it. I always did hate
her.”

“I can’t tell them what he was doing,”
Stella said, feeling her heart sink again.

“Tell me first what they are saying!”
Stella said, bracing herself to face the inevitable.

Tessa looked at her dubiously for a moment. Somehow
she would have found it easier to tell this thing
to Monck himself than to Stella. And yet she
had a feeling that it must be told, that Stella ought
to know. She clung a little closer to her.

Page 154

“I always did hate Major Burton,” she
said sweepingly. “I know he started it
in the first place. He said—­and now
she says—­that—­that it’s
very funny that the leave Uncle Everard had when he
pretended to go to England should have come just at
the time that Captain Dacre was killed in the mountains,
and that a horrid old man Uncle Everard knows called
Rustam Karin who lives in the bazaar was away at the
same time. And they just wonder if p’raps
he—­the old man—­had anything
to do with Captain Dacre dying like he did, and if
Uncle Everard knows—­something—­about
it. That’s how they put it, Aunt Stella.
Mother only told me to tease me, but that’s
what they say.”

She stopped, pressing Stella’s hand very tightly
to her little quivering bosom, and there followed
a pause, a deep silence that seemed to have in it
something of an almost suffocating quality.

Tessa moved at last because it became unbearable,
moved and looked down into Stella’s face as
if half afraid. She could not have said what she
expected to see there, but she was undoubtedly relieved
when the beautiful face, white as death though it
was, smiled back at her without a tremor.

Stella kissed her tenderly and let her go. “Thank
you for telling me, darling,” she said gently.
“It is just as well that I should know what
people say, even though it is nothing but idle gossip—­idle
gossip.” She repeated the words with emphasis.
“Run and find Scooter, sweetheart!” she
said. “And put all this silly nonsense out
of your dear little head for good! I must take
baby to ayah now. By and by we will read
a fairy-tale together and enjoy ourselves.”

Tessa ran away comforted, yet also vaguely uneasy.
Her tenderness notwithstanding, there was something
not quite normal about Stella’s dismissal of
her. This kind friend of hers had never sent her
away quite so summarily before. It was almost
as if she were half afraid that Tessa might see—­or
guess—­too much.

As for Stella, she carried her baby to the ayah,
and then shut herself into her own room where she
remained for a long time face to face with these new
doubts.

He had loved her before her marriage; he had called
their union Kismet. He wielded a strange, almost
an uncanny power among natives. And there was
Rustam Karin whom long ago she had secretly credited
with Ralph Dacre’s death—­the serpent
in the garden—­the serpent in the desert
also—­whose evil coils, it seemed to her,
were daily tightening round her heart.

CHAPTER V

THE WOMAN’S WAY

It was three days later that Tommy came striding in
from the polo-ground in great excitement with the
news that Captain Ermsted’s murderer had been
arrested.

Page 155

“All honour to Everard!” he said, flinging
himself into a chair by Stella’s side.
“The fellow was caught at Khanmulla. Barnes
arrested him, but he gives the credit of the catch
to Everard. The fellow will swing, of course.
It will be a sensational trial, for rumour has it that
the Rajah was pushing behind. He, of course,
is smooth as oil. I saw him at the Club just
now, hovering round Mrs. Ermsted as usual, and she
encouraging him. That girl is positively infatuated.
Shouldn’t wonder if there’s a rude awakening
before her. I beg your pardon, sir. You spoke?”
He turned abruptly to Bernard who was seated near.

“I was only wondering what Everard’s share
had been in tracking this charming person down,”
observed the elder Monck, who was smiling a little
at Tommy’s evident excitement.

“Oh, everyone knows that Everard is a regular
sleuth-hound,” said Tommy. “He is
more native than the natives when there is anything
of this kind in the wind. He is a born detective,
and he and that old chap in the bazaar are such a
strong combination that they are practically infallible
and invincible.”

“Do you mean Rustam Karin?” Stella spoke
very quietly, not lifting her eyes from her work.

Tommy turned to her. “That’s the
chap. The old beggar fellow. At least they
say he is. He never shows. Hafiz does all
the show part. The old boy is the brain that
works the wires. Everard has immense faith in
him.”

“I know,” Stella said.

Her voice sounded strangled, and Bernard looked across
at her; but she continued to work without looking
up.

Tommy lingered for a while, expatiating upon Everard’s
astuteness, and finally went away to dress for mess
still in a state of considerable excitement.

Stella and Bernard sat in silence after his departure.
There seemed to be nothing to say. But when,
after a time, he got up to go, she very suddenly raised
her eyes.

“Bernard!”

“My dear!” he said very kindly.

She put out a hand to him, almost as if feeling her
way in a dark place. “I want to ask you,”
she said, speaking hurriedly, “whether you know—­whether
you have ever heard—­the things that are
being said about—­about Everard and this
man—­Rustam Karin.”

She spoke with immense effort. It was evident
that she was greatly agitated.

Bernard stopped beside her, holding her hand firmly
in his. “Tell me what they are!”
he said gently.

She made a hopeless gesture. “Then you
do know! Everyone knows. Naturally I am
the last. You knew I connected that dreadful man
long ago with—­with Ralph’s death.
I had good reason for doing so after—­after
I had actually seen him on the verandah here that
awful night. But—­but now it seems—­because
he and Everard have always been in partnership—­because
they were both absent at the time of Ralph’s
death, no one knew where—­people are talking
and saying—­and saying—­”
She broke off with a sharp, agonized sound. “I
can’t tell you what they are saying!”
she whispered.

Page 156

“It is false!” said Bernard stoutly.
“It’s a foul lie of the devil’s own
concocting! How long have you known of this?
Who was vile enough to tell you?”

“You knew?” she whispered.

“I never heard the thing put into words but
I had my own suspicions of what was going about,”
he admitted. “But I never believed it.
Nothing on this earth would induce me to believe it.
You don’t believe it, either, child. You
know him better than that.”

She hid her face from him with a smothered sob.
“I thought I did—­once.”

“You did,” he asserted staunchly.
“You do! Don’t tell me otherwise,
for I shan’t believe you if you do! What
kind friend told you? I want to know.”

“Oh, it was only little Tessa. You mustn’t
blame her. She was full of indignation, poor
child. Her mother taunted her with it. You
know—­or perhaps you don’t know—­what
Netta Ermsted is.”

Bernard’s face was very grim as he made reply.
“I think I can guess. But you are not going
to be poisoned by her venom. Why don’t you
tell Everard, have it out with him? Say you don’t
believe it, but it hurts you to hear a damnable slander
like this and not be able to refute it! You are
not afraid of him, Stella? Surely you are not
afraid of him!”

But Stella only hid her face a little lower, and spoke
no word.

He laid his hand upon her as she sat. “What
does that mean?” he said. “Isn’t
your love equal to the strain?”

She shook her head dumbly. She could not meet
his look.

“What?” he said. “Is my love
greater than yours then? I would trust his honour
even to the gallows, if need be. Can’t you
say as much?”

She answered him with her head bowed, her words barely
audible. “It isn’t a question of
love. I—­should always love him—­whatever
he did.”

“Ah!” The flicker of a smile crossed Bernard’s
face. “That is the woman’s way.
There’s a good deal to be said for it, I daresay.”

“Yes—­yes.” Quiveringly
she made answer. “But—­if this
thing were true—­my love would have to be
sacrificed, even—­even though it would mean
tearing out my very heart. I couldn’t go
on—­with him. I couldn’t—­possibly.”

Her words trembled into silence, and the light died
out of Bernard’s eyes. “I see,”
he said slowly. “But, my dear, I can’t
understand how you—­loving him as you do—­can
allow for a moment, even in your most secret heart,
that such a thing as this could be true. That
is where you begin to go wrong. That is what
does the harm.”

She looked up at last, and the despair in her eyes
went straight to his heart. “I have always
felt there was—­something,” she said.
“I can’t tell you exactly how. But
it has always been there. I tried hard not to
love him—­not to marry him. But it was
no use. He mastered me with his love. But
I always knew—­I always knew—­that
there was something hidden which I might not see.
I have caught sight of it a dozen times, but I have
never really seen it.” She suppressed a
quick shudder. “I have been afraid of it,
and—­I have always looked the other way.”

Page 157

“A mistake,” Bernard said. “You
should always face your bogies. They have a trick
of swelling out of all proportion to their actual size
if you don’t.”

“Yes, I know. I know.” Stella
pressed his hand and withdrew her own. “You
are very good,” she said. “I couldn’t
have said this to any one but you. I can’t
speak to Everard. It isn’t entirely my own
weakness. He holds me off. He makes me feel
that it would be a mistake to speak.”

“Will you let me?” Bernard suggested,
taking out his pipe and frowning over it.

She shook her head instantly. “No!—­no!
I am sure he wouldn’t answer you, and—­and
it would hurt him to know that I had turned to any
one else, even to you. It would only make things
more difficult to bear.” She stopped short
with a nervous gesture. “He is coming now,”
she said.

There was a sound of horse’s hoofs at the gate,
and in a moment Everard Monck came into view, riding
his tall Waler which was smothered with dust and foam.

He waved to his wife as he rode up the broad path.
His dark face was alight with a grim triumph.
A saice ran forward to take his animal, and
he slid to the ground and stamped his feet as if stiff.

Then without haste he mounted the steps and came to
them.

“I am not fit to come near you,” he said,
as he drew near. “I have been right across
the desert to Udalkhand, and had to do some hard riding
to get back in time.” He pulled off his
glove and just touched Stella’s cheek in passing.
“Hullo, Bernard! About time for a drink,
isn’t it?”

He looked momentarily surprised when Stella swiftly
turned her head and kissed the hand that had so lightly
caressed her. He stopped beside her and laid
it on her shoulder.

“I am afraid you won’t approve of me when
I tell you what I have been doing,” he said.

She looked up at him. “I know. Tommy
came in and told us. You—­seem to have
done something rather great. I suppose we ought
to congratulate you.”

He smiled a little. “It is always satisfactory
when a murderer gets his deserts,” he said,
“though I am afraid the man who does the job
is not in all cases the prime malefactor.”

“Ah!” Stella said. She folded up
her work with hands that were not quite steady; her
face was very pale.

Everard stood looking down at the burnished coils
of her hair. “Are you going to the dance
at the Club to-night?” he asked, after a moment.

She shook her head instantly. “No.”

“Why not?” he questioned.

She leaned back in her chair, and looked up at him.
“As you know, I never was particularly fond
of the station society.”

He frowned a little. “It’s better
than nothing. You are too given to shutting yourself
up. Bernard thinks so too.”

Stella glanced towards her brother-in-law with a slight
lift of the eyebrows. “I don’t think
he does. But in any case, we are engaged to-night.
It is Tessa’s birthday, and she and Scooter are
coming to dine.”

Page 158

“Coming to dine! What on earth for?”
Everard looked his astonishment.

“My doing,” said Bernard. “It’s
a surprise-party. Stella very kindly fell in
with the plan, but it originated with me. You
see, Princess Bluebell is ten years old to-day, and
quite grown up. Mrs. Ralston had a children’s
party for her this afternoon which I was privileged
to attend. I must say Tessa made a charming hostess,
but she confided to me at parting that the desire
of her life was to play Cinderella and go out to dinner
in a ’rickshaw all by herself. So I undertook
then and there that a ’rickshaw should be waiting
for her at the gate at eight o’clock, and she
should have a stodgy grown-up entertainment to follow.
She was delighted with the idea, poor little soul.
The Ralstons are going to the Club dance, and of course
Mrs. Ermsted also, but Tommy is giving up the first
half to come and amuse Cinderella. Mrs. Ralston
thinks the child will be ill with so much excitement,
but a tenth birthday is something of an occasion,
as I pointed out. And she certainly behaved wonderfully
well this afternoon, though she was about the only
child who did. I nearly throttled the Burton
youngster for kicking the ayah, little brute.
He seemed to think it was a very ordinary thing to
do.” Bernard stopped himself with a laugh.
“You’ll be bored with all this, and I must
go and make ready. There are to be Chinese lanterns
to light the way and a strip of red cloth on the steps.
Peter is helping as usual, Peter the invaluable.
We shan’t keep it up very late. Will you
join us? Or are you also bound for the Club?”

“I will join you with pleasure,” Everard
said. “I haven’t seen the imp for
some days. There has been too much on hand.
How is the boy, Stella? Shall we go and say good-night
to him?”

Stella had risen. She put her hand through his
arm. “Bernard and Tommy are to do all the
entertaining, and you and I can amuse each other for
once. We don’t often have such a chance.”

She smiled as she spoke, but her lips were quivering.
Bernard sauntered away, and as he went, Everard stooped
and kissed her upturned face.

He did not speak, and she clung to him for a moment
passionately close. Wherefore she could not have
said, but there was in her embrace something to restrain
her tears. She forced them back with her utmost
resolution as they went together to see their child.

CHAPTER VI

THE SURPRISE PARTY

Punctually at eight o’clock Tessa arrived, slightly
awed but supremely happy, seated in a ’rickshaw,
escorted by Bernard, and hugging the beloved Scooter
to her eager little breast.

Her eyes were shining with mysterious expectation.
As her cavalier handed her from her chariot up the
red-carpeted steps she moved as one who treads enchanted
ground. The little creature in her arms wore an
air of deep suspicion. His pointed head turned
to and fro with ferret-like movements. His sharp
red eyes darted hither and thither almost apprehensively.
He was like a toy on wires.

Page 159

“He is going—­p’raps—­to
turn into a fairy prince soon,” explained Tessa.
“I’m not sure that he quite likes the idea
though. He would rather kill a dragon. P’raps
he’ll do both.”

“P’raps,” agreed Bernard.

He led the little girl along the vernadah under the
bobbing lanterns. Tessa looked about her critically.
“There aren’t any other children, are
there?” she said.

“Not one,” said Bernard, “unless
you count me. We are going to dine together,
you and I, quite alone—­if you can put up
with me. And after that we will hold a reception
for grown-ups only.”

“I shall like that,” said Tessa graciously.
“Ah, here is Peter! Peter, will you please
bring a box for Scooter while I have my dinner?
He wants to go snake-hunting,” she added to
Bernard. “And if he does that, I shan’t
have him again for the rest of the evening.”

“You don’t get snakes this time of year,
do you?” asked Bernard.

“Oh yes, sometimes. I saw one the other
day when I was out with Major Ralston. He tried
to kill it with his stick, but it got away. And
Scooter wasn’t there. They like to hide
under bits of carpet like this,” said Tessa
in an instructive tone, pointing to the strip that
had been laid in her honour. “Are you afraid
of snakes, Uncle St. Bernard?”

“He has been more or less brought up with them,”
said Bernard. “Scorpions too. He smiled
the other day when I fled from a scorpion in the garden.
And I believe he has a positively fatherly feeling
for rats.”

Tessa shivered a little. “Scooter killed
a rat the other day, and it squealed dreadfully.
I don’t think he ought to do things like that,
but of course he doesn’t know any better.”

“He looks as if he knows a lot,” said
Bernard.

“Yes, I wish he would learn to talk. He’s
awful clever. Do you think we could ever teach
him?” asked Tessa.

Bernard shook his head. “No. It would
take a magician to do that. We are not clever
enough, either of us. Peter now—­”

“Oh, is Peter a magician?” said Tessa,
with shining eyes. “Peter, dear Peter,”
turning to him ecstatically as he appeared with a box
in which to imprison her darling, “do you think
you could possibly teach my little Scooter to talk?”

Peter smiled all over his bronze countenance.
“Missy sahib, only the Holy Ones can
do that,” he said.

Tessa’s face fell. “That’s
as bad as telling you to pray for anything, isn’t
it?” she said to Bernard. “And my
prayers never come true. Do yours?”

“They always get answered,” said Bernard,
“some time or other.”

“Oh, do they?” Tessa regarded him with
interest. “Does God come and talk to you
then?” she said.

He smiled a little. “He speaks to all who
wait to hear, my princess,” he said.

Page 160

“Only to grown-ups,” said Tessa, looking
incredulous.

Bernard put his arm round her. “No,”
he said. “It’s the children who come
first with Him. He may not give them just what
they ask for, but it’s generally something better.”

Tessa stared at him, her eyes round and dark.
“S’pose,” she said suddenly, “a
big snake was to come out of that corner, and I was
to say, ‘Don’t let it bite me, Lord!’
Do you think it would?”

“No,” said Bernard very decidedly.

“Oh!” said Tessa. “Well, I
wish one would then, for I’d love to see if
it would or not.”

Bernard pulled her to him and kissed her. “We
won’t talk any more about snakes or you’ll
be dreaming of them,” he said. “Come
along and dine with me! Rather sport having it
all to ourselves, eh?”

“Where’s Aunt Stella and Uncle Everard?”
asked Tessa.

“Oh, they’re preparing for the reception.
Let me take your Highness’s cloak! This
is the banqueting-room.”

He threw the cloak over a chair in the verandah, and
led her into the drawing-room, where a small table
lighted by candles with crimson shades awaited them.

“How pretty!” cried Tessa, clapping her
hands.

Peter in snowy attire, benign and magnificent, attended
to their wants, and the feast proceeded, vastly enjoyed
by both. Tessa had never been so feted
in all her small life before.

When, at the end of the repast, to an accompaniment
of nuts and sweetmeats, Bernard poured her a tiny
ruby-coloured liqueur glass of wine, her delight knew
no bounds.

“I’ve never enjoyed myself so much before,”
she declared. “What a ducky little glass!
Now I’m going to drink your health!”

“No. I drink yours first.” Bernard
arose, holding his glass high. “I drink
to the Princess Bluebell. May she grow fairer
every day! And may her cup of blessing be always
full!”

“Thank you,” said Tessa. “And
now, Uncle St. Bernard, I’m going to drink to
you. May you always have lots to laugh at!
And may your prayers always come true! That rhymes,
doesn’t it?” she added complacently.
“Do I drink all my wine now, or only a sip?”

“Depends,” said Bernard.

“How does it depend?”

“It depends on how much you love me,”
he explained. “If there’s any one
else you love better, you save a little for him.”

She looked straight at him with a hint of embarrassment
in her eyes.
“I’m afraid I love Uncle Everard best,”
she said.

Bernard smiled upon her with reassuring kindliness.
“Quite right, my child. So you ought.
There’s Tommy too and Aunt Stella. I am
sure you want to drink to them.”

Tessa slipped round the table to his side, clasping
her glass tightly. As she came within the circle
of his arm she whispered, “Yes, I love them
ever such a lot. But I love you best of all, except
Uncle Everard, and he doesn’t want me when he’s
got Aunt Stella. I s’pose you never wanted
a little girl for your very own did you?”

Page 161

He looked down at her, his blue eyes full of tenderness.
“I’ve often wanted you, Tessa,”
he said.

“Have you?” she beamed upon him, rubbing
her flushed cheek against his shoulder. “I’m
sure you can have me if you like,” she said.

He pressed her to him. “I don’t think
your mother would agree to that, you know.”

Tessa’s red lips pouted disgust. “Oh,
she wouldn’t care! She never cares what
I do. She likes it much best when I’m not
there.”

Bernard’s brows were slightly drawn. His
arm held the little slim body very closely to him.

“You and I would be so happy,” insinuated
Tessa, as he did not speak. “I’d
do as you told me always. And I’d never,
never be rude to you.”

He bent and kissed her. “I know that, my
darling.”

“And when you got old, dear Uncle St. Bernard,—­really
old, I mean—­I’d take such care of
you,” she proceeded. “I’d be—­more—­than
a daughter to you.”

“Ah!” he said. “I should like
that, my princess of the bluebell eyes.”

“You would?” she looked at him eagerly.
“Then don’t you think you might tell Mother
you’ll have me? I know she wouldn’t
mind.”

He smiled at her impetuosity. “We must
be patient, my princess,” he said. “These
things can’t be done offhand, if at all.”

She slid her arm round his neck and hugged him.
“But there is the weeniest, teeniest chance,
isn’t there? ’Cos you do think you’d
like to have me if I was good, and I’d—­love—­to
belong to you. Is there just the wee-est little
chance, Uncle St. Bernard? Would it be any good
praying for it?”

He took her little hand into his warm kind grasp,
for she was quivering all over with excitement.

“Yes, pray, little one!” he said.
“You may not get exactly what you want.
But there will be an answer if you keep on. Be
sure of that!”

Tessa nodded comprehension. “All right.
I will. And you will too, won’t you?
It’ll be fun both praying for the same thing,
won’t it? Oh, my wine! I nearly spilt
it.”

“Better drink it and make it safe!” he
said with a twinkle. “I’m going to
drink mine, and then we’ll go on to the verandah
and wait for something to happen.”

“Is something going to happen?” asked
Tessa, with a shiver of delighted anticipation.

But ere they reached the French window that led on
to the verandah, a sudden loud report followed by
a succession of minor ones coming from the compound
told them that the happenings had already begun.
Tessa gave one great jump, and then literally danced
with delight.

“Fireworks!” she cried. “Fireworks!
That’s Tommy! I know it is. Do let’s
go and look!” They went, and hung over the verandah-rail
to watch a masked figure attired in an old pyjama
suit of vivid green and white whirling a magnificent
wheel of fire that scattered glowing sparks in all
directions.

Page 162

Tessa was wild with excitement. “How lovely!”
she cried. “Oh, how lovely! Dear Uncle
St. Bernard, mayn’t I go down and help him?”

But Bernard decreed that she should remain upon the
verandah, and, strangely, Tessa submitted without
protest. She held his hand tightly, as if to
prevent herself making any inadvertent dash for freedom,
but she leapt to and fro like a dog on the leash,
squeaking her ecstasy at every fresh display achieved
by the bizarre masked figure below them.

Bernard watched her with compassionate sympathy in
his kindly eyes. Little Tessa had won a very
warm place in his heart. He marvelled at her
mother’s attitude of callous indifference.

Certainly Tessa had never enjoyed herself more thoroughly
than on that evening of her tenth birthday. Time
flew by on the wings of delight. Tommy’s
exhibition was appreciated with almost delirious enthusiasm
on the verandah, and a little crowd of natives at
the gate pushed and nudged each other with an admiration
quite as heartfelt though carefully suppressed.

The display had been going on for some time when Stella
came out alone and joined the two on the verandah.
To Tessa’s eager inquiry for Uncle Everard she
made answer that he had been called out on business,
and to Bernard she added that Hafiz had sent him a
message by one of the servants, and she supposed he
had gone to Rustam Karin’s stall in the bazaar.
She looked pale and dispirited, but she joined in Tessa’s
delighted appreciation of the entertainment which now
was drawing to a close.

It was getting late, and as with a shower of coloured
stars the magician in the compound accomplished a
grand finale, Bernard put his arm around the
narrow shoulders and said, with a kindly squeeze, “I
am going to see my princess home again now. She
mustn’t lose all her beauty-sleep.”

She lifted her face to kiss him. “It has
been—­lovely,” she said. “I
do wish I needn’t go back to-night. Do
you think Aunt Mary would mind if I stayed with you?”

He smiled at her whimsically. “Perhaps
not, princess; but I am going to take you back to
her all the same. Say good-night to Aunt Stella!
She looks as if a good dose of bed would do her good.”

Tommy, with his mask in his hand, came running up
the verandah-steps, and Tessa sprang to meet him.

“Oh, Tommy—­darling, I have enjoyed
myself so!”

He kissed her lightly. “That’s all
right, scaramouch. So have I. I must get out
of this toggery now double-quick. I suppose you
are off in your ’rickshaw? I’ll walk
with you. It’ll be on the way to the Club.”

“Oh, how lovely! You on one side and Uncle
St. Bernard on the other!” cried Tessa.

“The princess will travel in state,” observed
Bernard. “Ah! Here comes Peter with
Scooter! Have your cloak on before you take him
out!”

The cloak had fallen from the chair. Peter set
down Scooter in his prison, and picked it up.
By the light of the bobbing, coloured lanterns he
placed it about her shoulders.

Page 163

Tessa suddenly turned and sat down. “My
shoe is undone,” she said, extending her foot
with a royal air. “Where is the prince?”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before another
sound escaped her which she hastily caught back as
though instinct had stifled it in her throat.
“Look!” she gasped.

Peter was nearest to her. He had bent to release
Scooter, but like a streak of light he straightened
himself. He saw—­before any one else
had time to realize—–­ the hideous
thing that writhed in momentary entanglement in the
folds of Tessa’s cloak, and then suddenly reared
itself upon her lap as she sat frozen stiff with horror.

He stooped over the child, his hands outspread, waiting
for the moment to swoop. “Missy sahib,
not move—­not move!” he said softly
above her. “My missy sahib not going
to be hurt. Peter taking care of Missy sahib.”

Tommy would have flung himself forward then, but Bernard
caught and held him. He had seen the look in
the Indian’s eyes, and he knew beyond all doubting
that Tessa was safe, if any human power could make
her so.

Stella knew it also. In that moment Peter loomed
gigantic to her. His gleaming eyes and strangely
smiling face held her spellbound with a fascination
greater even than that wicked, vibrating thing that
coiled, black and evil, on the white of Tessa’s
frock could command. She knew that if none intervened,
Peter would accomplish Tessa’s deliverance.

But there was one factor which they had all forgotten.
In those tense seconds Scooter the mongoose by some
means invisible became aware of the presence of the
enemy. The lid of his box had already been loosened
by Peter. With a frantic effort he forced it
up and leapt free.

In that moment Peter, realizing that another instant’s
delay might be fatal, pounced forward with a single
swift swoop and seized the serpent-in his naked hands.

Tessa uttered the shriek which a few seconds before
sheer horror had arrested, and fell back senseless
in her chair.

Peter, grim and awful in the uncertain light, fought
the thing he had gripped, while a small, red-eyed
monster clawed its way up him, fiercely clambering
to reach the horrible, writhing creature in the man’s
hold.

It was all over in a few hard-breathing seconds, over
before either of the men in front of Peter or a shadowy
figure behind him that had come up at Tessa’s
cry could give any help.

With a low laugh that was more terrible than any uttered
curse, Peter flung the coiling horror over the verandah-rail
into the bushes of the compound. Something else
went with it, closely locked. They heard the
thud of the fall, and there followed an awful, voiceless
struggling in the darkness.

“Peter!” a voice said.

Page 164

Peter was leaning against a post of the verandah.
“Missy sahib is quite safe,” he
said, but his voice sounded odd, curiously lifeless.

The shadow that had approached behind him swept forward
into the light. The lanterns shone upon a strange
figure, bent, black-bearded, clothed in a long, dingy
garment that seemed to envelop it from head to foot.

Peter gave a violent start and spoke a few rapid words
in his own language.

The other made answer even more swiftly, and in a
second there was the flash of a knife in the fitful
glare. Bernard and Tommy both started forward,
but Peter only thrust out one arm with a grunt.
It was a gesture of submission, and it told its own
tale.

“The poor devil’s bitten!” gasped
Tommy.

Bernard turned to Tessa and lifted the little limp
body in his arms.

He thought that Stella would follow him as he bore
the child into the room behind, but she did not.

The place was in semi-darkness, for they had turned
down the lamps to see the fireworks. He laid
her upon a sofa and turned them up again.

The light upon her face showed it pinched and deathly.
Her breathing seemed to be suspended. He left
her and went swiftly to the dining-room in search
of brandy.

Returning with it, he knelt beside her, forcing a
little between the rigid white lips. His own
mouth was grimly compressed. The sight of his
little playfellow lying like that cut him to the soul.
She was uninjured, he knew, but he asked himself if
the awful fright had killed her. He had never
seen so death-like a swoon before.

He had no further thought for what was passing on
the verandah outside. Tommy had said that Peter
was bitten, but there were three people to look after
him, whereas Tessa—­poor brave mite—­had
only himself. He chafed her icy cheeks and hands
with a desperate sense of impotence.

He was rewarded after what seemed to him an endless
period of suspense. A tinge of colour came into
the white lips, and the closed eyelids quivered and
slowly opened. The bluebell eyes gazed questioningly
into his.

“Where—­where is Scooter?” whispered
Tessa.

“Not far away, dear,” he made answer soothingly.
“We will go and find him presently. Drink
another little drain of this first!”

She obeyed him almost mechanically. The shadow
of a great horror still lingered in her eyes.
He gathered her closely to him.

“Try and get a little sleep, darling! I’m
here. I’ll take care of you.”

She sank down in his hold, too spent to trouble herself
any further, and in a very few seconds her quiet breathing
told him that she was fast asleep.

Page 165

He sat very still, holding her. The awful peril
through which she had come had made her tenfold more
precious in his eyes. He could not have loved
her more tenderly if she had been indeed his own.
He fell to dreaming with his cheek against her hair.

CHAPTER VII

RUSTAM KARIN

How long a time passed he never knew. It could
not in actual fact have been more than a few minutes
when a sudden sound from the verandah put an end to
his reverie.

He laid the child back upon the sofa and got up.
She was sleeping off the shock; it would be a pity
to wake her. He moved noiselessly to the window.

As he did so, a voice he scarcely recognized—­a
woman’s voice—­spoke, tensely, hoarsely,
close to him.

“Tommy, stop that man! Don’t let
him go! He is a murderer,—­do you hear?
He is the man who murdered my husband!”

Bernard stepped over the sill and closed the window
after him. The lanterns were still swaying in
the night-breeze. By their light he took in the
group upon the verandah. Peter was sitting bent
forward in the chair from which he had lifted Tessa.
His snowy garments were deeply stained with blood.
Beside him in a crouched and apelike attitude, apparently
on the point of departure, was the shadowy native who
had saved his life. Tommy, still fantastic and
clown-like in his green and white pyjama-suit, was
holding a glass for Peter to drink. And upright
before them all, with accusing arm outstretched, her
eyes shining like stars out of the shadows, stood
Stella.

She turned to Bernard as he came forward. “Don’t
let him escape!” she said, her voice deep with
an insistence he had never heard in it before.
“He escaped last time. And there may not
be another chance.”

“I know. I know. I have known for
a long time that it was Rustam Karin who killed Ralph.”
Stella’s voice vibrated on a strange note.
“He may be Everard’s chosen friend,”
she said. “But a day will come when he will
turn upon him too. Bernard,” she spoke with
sudden appeal, “you know everything. I
have told you of this man. Surely you will help
me! I have made no mistake. Peter will corroborate
what I say. Ask Peter!”

At sound of his name Peter lifted a ghastly face and
tried to rise, but Tommy swiftly prevented him.

“Sit still, Peter, will you? You’re
much too shaky to walk. Finish this stuff first
anyhow!”

Peter sank back, but there was entreaty in his gleaming
eyes. They had bandaged his injured arm across
his breast, but with his free hand he made a humble
gesture of submission to his mistress.

“Mem-sahib,” he said, his voice
low and urgent, “he is a good man—­a
holy man. Suffer him to go his way!”

Page 166

The man in question had withdrawn into the shadows.
He was in fact beating an unobtrusive retreat towards
the corner of the bungalow, and would probably have
effected his escape but for Bernard, who, moved by
the anguished entreaty in Stella’s eyes, suddenly
strode forward and gripped him by his tattered garment.

“No harm in making inquiries anyway!”
he said. “Don’t you be in such a
hurry, my friend. It won’t do you any harm
to come back and give an account of yourself—­that
is, if you are harmless.”

He pulled the retreating native unceremoniously back
into the light. The man made some resistance,
but there was a mastery about Bernard that would not
be denied. Hobbling, misshapen, muttering in his
beard, he returned.

“Mem-sahib!” Again Peter’s
voice spoke, and there was a break in it as though
he pleaded with Fate itself and knew it to be in vain.
“He is a good man, but he is leprous. Mem-sahib,
do not look upon him! Suffer him to go!”

Possibly the words might have had effect, for Stella’s
rigidity had turned to a violent shivering and it
was evident that her strength was beginning to fail.
But in that moment Bernard broke into an exclamation
of most unwonted anger, and ruthlessly seized the ragged
wisp of black beard that hung down over his victim’s
hollow chest.

The beard came away in his indignant hand. The
owner thereof straightened himself up with a contemptuous
gesture till he reached the height of a tall man.
The enveloping chuddah slipped back from his
head.

“I am not the fool,” he said briefly.

Stella’s cry rang through the verandah, and
it was Peter who, utterly forgetful of his own adversity,
leapt up like a faithful hound to protect her in her
hour of need.

The glass in Tommy’s hand fell with a crash.
Tommy himself staggered back as if he had been struck
a blow between the eyes.

And across the few feet that divided them as if it
had been a yawning gulf, Everard Monck faced the woman
who had denounced him.

He did not utter a word. His eyes met hers unflinching.
They were wholly without anger, emotionless, inscrutable.
But there was something terrible behind his patience.
It was as if he had bared his breast for her to strike.

And Stella—­Stella looked upon him with
a frozen, incredulous horror, just as Tessa had looked
upon the snake upon her lap only a little while before.

In the dreadful silence that hung like a poisonous
vapour upon them, there came a small rustling close
to them, and a wicked little head with red, peering
eyes showed through the balustrade of the verandah.

In a moment Scooter with an inexpressibly evil air
of satisfaction slipped through and scuttled in a
zigzag course over the matting in search of fresh
prey.

Page 167

It was then that Stella spoke, her voice no more than
a throbbing whisper. “Rustam Karin!”
she said.

Very grimly across the gulf, Everard made answer.
“Rustam Karin was removed to a leper settlement
before you set foot in India.”

“By—­Jupiter!” ejaculated Tommy.

No one else spoke till slowly, with the gesture of
an old and stricken woman, Stella turned away.
“I must think,” she said, in the same curious
vibrating whisper, as though she held converse with
herself. “I must—­think.”

No one attempted to detain her. It was as though
an invisible barrier cut her off from all but Peter.
He followed her closely, forgetful of his wound, forgetful
of everything but her pressing need. With dumb
devotion he went after her, and they vanished beyond
the flicker of the bobbing lanterns.

Of the three men left, none moved or spoke for several
difficult seconds. Finally Bernard, with an abrupt
gesture that seemed to express exasperation, turned
sharply on his heel and without a word re-entered
the room in which he had left Tessa asleep, and fastened
the window behind him. He left the tangle of
beard on the matting, and Scooter stopped and nosed
it sensitively till Everard stooped and picked it up.

“That show being over,” he remarked drily,
“perhaps I may be allowed to attend to business
without further interference.”

Tommy gave a great start and crunched some splinters
of the shattered glass under his heel. He looked
at Everard with an odd, challenging light in his eyes.

“If you ask me,” he said bluntly, “I
should say your business here is more urgent than
your business in the bazaar.”

Everard raised his brows interrogatively, and as if
he had asked a question Tommy made sternly resolute
response.

“I’ve got to have a talk with you.
Shall I come into your room?”

Just for a second the elder man paused; then:
“Are you sure that is the wisest thing you can
do?” he said.

“It’s what I’m going to do,”
said Tommy firmly.

“All right.” Everard stooped again,
picked up the inquiring Scooter, and dropped him into
the box in which he had spent the evening.

Then without more words, he turned along the verandah
and led the way to his own room.

Tommy came close behind. He was trembling a little
but his agitation only seemed to make him more determined.

He paused a moment as he entered the room behind Everard
to shut the window; then valiantly tackled the hardest
task that had ever come his way.

“Look here!” he said. “You
must see that this thing can’t be left where
it is.”

Everard threw off the garment that encumbered him
and gravely faced his young brother-in-law.

“Yes, I do see that,” he said. “I
seem to have exhausted my credit all round. It’s
decent of you, Tommy, to have been as forbearing as
you have. Now what is it you want to know?”

Page 168

Tommy confronted him uncompromisingly. “I
want to know the truth, that’s all,” he
said. “Can’t you stop this dust-throwing
business and be straight with me?”

His tone was stubborn, his attitude almost hostile.
Yet beneath it all there ran a vein of something that
was very like entreaty. And Everard, steadily
watching him, smiled—­the faint grim smile
of the fighter who sees a gap in his enemy’s
defences.

Tommy flinched a little, but he stood his ground.
“I think you’re forgetting,” he
said, “that Stella is my sister. It’s
up to me to protect her.”

“From me?” Everard’s words came
swift and sharp as a sword-thrust.

Tommy turned suddenly white, but he straightened himself
with a gesture that was not without dignity.
“If necessary—­yes,” he said.

An abrupt silence followed his words. They stood
facing each other, and the stillness between them
was such that they could hear Scooter beyond the closed
window scratching against his prison-walls for freedom.

It seemed endless to Tommy. He came through it
unfaltering, but he felt physically sick, as if he
had been struck in the back.

When Everard spoke at last, his hands clenched involuntarily.
He half expected violence. But there was no hint
of anger about the elder man. He had himself
under iron control. His face was flint-like in
its composure, his mouth implacably grim.

“Thanks for the warning!” he said briefly.
“It’s just as well to know how we stand.
Is that all you wanted to say?”

The dismissal was as definite as if he had actually
seized and thrown him out of the room. And yet
there was not even suppressed wrath in his speech.
It was indifferent, remote as a voice from the desert-distance.
His eyes looked upon Tommy without interest or any
sort of warmth, as though he had been a total stranger.

In that moment Tommy saw that sacred thing, their
friendship, shattered and lying in the dust.
It was not he who had flung it there, yet his soul
cried out in bitter self-reproach. This was the
man who had been closer to him than a brother, the
man who had saved him from disaster physically and
morally, watching over him with a grim tenderness that
nothing had ever changed.

And now it was all done with. There was nothing
left but to turn and go.

But could he? He stood irresolute, biting his
lips, held there by a force that seemed outside himself.
And it was Everard who made the first move, turning
from him as if he had ceased to count and pulling out
a note-book that he always carried to make some entry.

Tommy stood yet a moment longer as if, had it been
possible, he would have broken through the barrier
between them even then. But Everard did not so
much as glance in his direction, and the moment passed.

In utter silence he turned and went out as he had
entered. There was nothing more to be said.

Page 169

CHAPTER VIII

PETER

Tessa went back to the Ralstons’ bungalow that
night borne in Bernard’s arms. She knew
very little about it, for she scarcely awoke, only
dimly realizing that her friend was at hand.
Tommy went with them, carrying Scooter. He said
he must show himself at the Club, though Bernard suspected
this to be merely an excuse for escaping for a time
from The Green Bungalow. For it was evident that
Tommy had had a shock.

He himself was merely angry at what appeared to him
a wanton trick, too angry to trust himself in his
brother’s company just then. He regarded
it as no part of his business to attempt to intervene
between Everard and his wife, but his sympathies were
all with the latter. That she in some fashion
misconstrued the whole affair he could not doubt, but
he was by no means sure that Everard had not deliberately
schemed for some species of misunderstanding.
He had, to serve his own ends, personated a man who
was apparently known to be disreputable, and if he
now received the credit for that man’s misdeeds
he had himself alone to thank. Obviously a mistake
had been made, but it seemed to him that Everard had
intended it to be made, had even worked to bring it
about. What his object had been Bernard could
not bring to conjecture. But his instinctive,
inborn hatred of all underhand dealings made him resent
his brother’s behaviour with all the force at
his command. He was too angry to attempt to unravel
the mystery, and he did not broach the subject to
Tommy who evidently desired to avoid it.

The whole business was beyond his comprehension and,
he was convinced, beyond Stella’s also.
He did not think Everard would find it a very easy
task to restore her confidence. Perhaps he would
not attempt to do so. Perhaps he was too engrossed
with the service of his goddess to care that he and
his wife should drift asunder. And yet—­the
memory of the morning on which he had first seen those
streaks of grey in his brother’s hair came upon
him, and an unwilling sensation of pity softened his
severity. Perhaps he had been drawn in in spite
of himself. Perhaps the poor beggar was a victim
rather than a worshipper. Most certainly—­whatever
his faults—­he cared deeply.

Would he be able to make Stella realize that?
Bernard wondered, and shook his head in doubt.

The thought of Stella turning away with that look
of frozen horror on her face pursued him through the
night. Poor girl! She had looked as though
the end of all things had come for her. Could
he have helped her? Ought he to have left her
so? He quickened his pace almost insensibly.
No, he would not interfere of his own free will.
But if she needed his support, if she counted upon
him, he would not be found wanting. It might
even be given to him eventually to help them both.

Page 170

He had not seen her again. She had gone to her
room with Peter in attendance, Peter who owed his
life to the knife in Everard’s girdle. He
had had a strong feeling that Peter was the only friend
she needed just then, and certainly Tessa had been
his first responsibility. But the feeling that
possibly she might need him was growing upon him.
He wished he had satisfied himself before starting
that this was not the case. But he comforted
himself with the thought of Peter. He was sure
that Peter would take care of her.

Yes, Peter would care for his beloved mem-sahib,
whatever his physical disabilities. He would
never fail in the execution of that his sacred duty
while the power to do so was his. If all others
failed her, yet would Peter remain faithful.
Even then with his dog-like devotion was he crouched
upon her threshold, his dark face wrapped in his garment,
yet alert for every sound and mournfully aware that
his mistress was not resting. Of his own wound
he thought not at all. He had been very near
the gate of death, and the only man in the world for
whom he entertained the smallest feeling of fear had
snatched him back. To his promptitude alone did
Peter owe his life. He had cut out that deadly
bite with a swiftness and a precision that had removed
all danger of snake-poison, and in so doing he had
exposed the secret which he had guarded so long and
so carefully. The first moment of contact had
betrayed him to Peter, but Peter was very loyal.
Had he been the only one to recognize him, the secret
would have been safe. He had done his best to
guard it, but Fate had been against them. And
the mem-sahib—­the mem-sahib
had turned and gone away as one heart-broken.

Peter yearned to comfort her, but the whole situation
was beyond him. He could only mount guard in
silence. Perhaps—­presently—­the
great sahib himself would come, and make all
things right again. The night was advancing.
Surely he would come soon.

Barely had he begun to hope for this when the door
he guarded was opened slightly from within. His
mem-sahib, strangely white and still, looked
forth.

“Peter!” she said gently.

He was up in a moment, bending before her, his black
eyes glowing in the dim light.

She laid her slender hand upon his shoulder.
She had ever treated him with the graciousness of
a queen. “How is your wound?” she
asked him in her soft, low voice. “Has
it been properly bathed and dressed?”

He straightened himself, looking into her beautiful
pale face with the loving reverence that he always
accorded her. “All is well, my mem-sahib,”
he said. “Will you not be graciously pleased
to rest?”

She shook her head, smiling faintly—­a smile
that somehow tore his heart. She opened her door
and motioned him to enter. “I think I had
better see for myself,” she said. “Poor
Peter! How you must have suffered, and how splendidly
brave you are! Come in and let me see what I
can do!”

Page 171

He hung back protesting; but she would take no refusal,
gently but firmly overruling all his scruples.

“Why was the doctor not sent for?” she
said. “I ought to have thought of it myself.”

She insisted upon washing and bandaging his wound
anew. It was a deep one. Necessity had been
stern, and Everard had not spared. It had bled
freely, and there was no sign of any poisonous swelling.
With tender hands Stella treated it, Peter standing
dumbly submissive the while.

When she had finished, she arranged the injured arm
in a sling, and looked him in the eyes.

“Peter, where is the captain sahib?”

“He went to his room, my mem-sahib,”
said Peter. “Bernard sahib carried
the little missy sahib back, and Denvers sahib
went with him. I did not see the captain sahib
again.”

He spoke wistfully, as one who longed to help but
recognized his limitations.

Stella received his news in silence, her face still
and white as the face of a marble statue. She
felt no resentment against Peter. He had acted
almost under compulsion. But she could not discuss
the matter with him.

At length: “You may go, Peter,” she
said. “Please let no one come to my door
to-night! I wish to be undisturbed.”

Peter salaamed low and withdrew. The order was
a very definite one, and she knew she could rely upon
him to carry it out. As the door closed softly
upon him, she turned towards her window. It opened
upon the verandah. She moved across the room
to shut it; but ere she reached it, Everard Monck
came noiselessly through on slippered feet and bolted
it behind him.

CHAPTER IX

THE CONSUMING FIRE

As he turned towards her, there came upon Stella,
swift as a stab through the heart, the memory of that
terrible night more than a year before when he had
drawn her into his room and fastened the window behind
her—­against whom? His wild words rushed
upon her. She had deemed them to be directed
against the unknown intruder on the verandah.
She knew now that the madness that had loosed his
tongue had moved him to utter his fierce threat against
a man who was dead—­against the man whom
he had—­She stopped the thought as she would
have checked the word half-spoken. She turned
shivering away. The man on the verandah, that
vision of the night-watches, she saw it all now—­she
saw it all. And he had loved her before her marriage.
And he had known—­and he had known—­that,
given opportunity, he could win her for his own.

Like a throbbing undersong—­the fiendish
accompaniment to the devils’ chorus—­the
gossip of the station as detailed by Tessa ran with
glib mockery through her brain. Ah, they only
suspected. But she knew—­she knew!
The door of that secret chamber had opened wide to
her at last, and perforce she had entered in.

He had moved forward, but he had not spoken.
At least she fancied not, but all her senses were
in an uproar. And above it all she seemed to
hear that dreadful little thrumming instrument down
by the river at Udalkhand—­the tinkling,
mystic call of the vampire goddess,—­India
the insatiable who had made him what he was.

Page 172

He came to her, and every fibre of her being was aware
of him and thrilled at his coming. Never had
she loved him as she loved him then, but her love
was a fiery torment that burned and consumed her soul.
She seemed to feel it blistering, shrivelling, in
the cruel heat.

Almost before she knew it, she had broken her silence,
speaking as it were in spite of herself, scarcely
knowing in her anguish what she said.

“Yes, I know. I know what you are going
to say. You are going to tell me that I belong
to you. And of course it is true,—­I
do. But if I stay with you, I shall be—­a
murderess. Nothing will alter that.”

“Stella!” he said.

His voice was stern, so stern that she flinched.
He laid his hand upon her, and she shrank as she would
have shrunk from a hot iron searing her flesh.
She had a wild thought that she would bear the brand
of it for ever.

“Stella,” he said again, and in both tone
and action there was compulsion. “I have
come to tell you that you are making a mistake.
I am innocent of this thing you suspect me of.”

She stood unresisting in his hold, but she was shaking
all over. The floor seemed to be rising and falling
under her feet. She knew that her lips moved
several times before she could make them speak.

“But I don’t suspect,” she said.
“The others suspect. I—­know.”

He received her words in silence. She saw his
face as through a shifting vapour, very pale, very
determined, with eyes of terrible intensity dominating
her own.

Half mechanically she repeated herself. It was
as if that devilish thrumming in her brain compelled
her. “The others suspect. I—­know.”

“I see,” he said at last. “And
nothing I can say will make any difference?”

“Oh, no!” she made answer, and scarcely
knew that she spoke, so cold and numb had she become.
“How could it—­now?”

He looked at her, and suddenly he saw that to which
his own suffering had momentarily blinded him.
He saw her utter weakness. With a swif passionate
movement he caught her to him. For a second or
two he held her so, strained against his heart, then
almost fiercely he turned her face up to his own and
kissed the stiff white lips.

“Be it so then!” he said, and in his voice
was a deep note as though he challenged all the powers
of evil. “You are mine—­and mine
you will remain.”

She did not resist him though the touch of his lips
was terrible to her. Only as they left her own,
she turned her face aside. Very strangely that
savage lapse of his had given her strength.

“Physically—­perhaps—­but
only for a little while,” she said gaspingly.
“And in spirit, never—­never again!”

“What do you mean?” he said, his arms
tightening about her.

She kept her face averted. “I mean—­that
some forms of torture are worse than death. If
it comes to that—­if you compel me—­I
shall choose death.”

Page 173

“Stella!” He let her go so suddenly that
she nearly fell. The utterance of her name was
as a cry wrung from him by sheer agony. He turned
from her with his hands over his face. “My
God!” he said, and again almost inarticulately,
“My—­God!”

The low utterance pierced her, yet she stood motionless,
her hands gripped hard together. He had forced
the words from her, and they were past recall.
Nor would she have recalled them, had she been able,
for it seemed to her that her love had become an evil
thing, and her whole being shrank from it in a species
of horrified abhorrence, even though she could not
cast it out.

He had turned towards the window, and she watched
him, her heart beating in slow, hard strokes with
a sound like a distant drum. Would he go?
Would he remain? She almost prayed aloud that
he would go.

But he did not. Very suddenly he turned and strode
back to her. There was purpose in every line
of him, but there was no longer any violence.

He halted before her. “Stella,” he
said, and his voice was perfectly steady and controlled,
“do you think you are being altogether fair to
me?”

She wrung her clasped hands. She could not answer
him.

He took them into his own very quietly. “Just
look me in the face for a minute!” he said.

She yearned to disobey, but she could not. Dumbly
she raised her eyes to his.

He waited a moment, very still and composed.
Then he spoke. “Stella, I swear to you—­and
I call God to witness—­that I did not kill
Ralph Dacre.”

A dreadful shiver went through her at the bald brief
words. She felt, as Tommy had felt a little earlier,
physically sick. The beating of her heart was
getting slower and slower. She wondered if presently
it would stop.

“Do you believe me?” he said, still holding
her eyes with his, still clasping her icy hands firmly
between his own.

She forced herself to speak before that horrible sense
of nausea overcame her. “Perhaps—­David—­said
the same thing—­about Uriah the Hittite.”

His face changed a little, but it was a change she
could not have defined. His eyes remained inscrutably
fixed upon hers. They seemed to enchain her quivering
soul.

“No,” he said quietly. “Nor
did I employ any one else to do it.”

“But you were there!” The words seemed
suddenly to burst from her without her own volition.

He drew back sharply, as if he had been struck.
But he kept his eyes upon hers. “I can’t
explain anything,” he said. “I am
not here to explain. I only came to see if your
love was great enough to make you believe in me—­in
spite of all there seems to be against me. Is
it, Stella? Is it?”

His words seemed to go through her, tearing a way
to her heart; the agony was more than she could bear.
She uttered an anguished cry, and wrenched herself
from him. “It isn’t a question of
love!” she said. “You know it isn’t
a question of love! I never wanted to love you.
I never wholly trusted you. But you forced my
love—­though you couldn’t compel my
trust. And now that I know—­now that
I know—­” her voice broke as if the
torture were too great for her; she flung out her hands
with a gesture of driving him from her—­“oh,
it is hell on earth—­hell on earth!”

Page 174

He drew back for a second before her, his face deathly
white. And then suddenly an awful light leapt
in his eyes. He gripped her outflung hands.
The fire had kindled to a flame and the torture was
too much for him also.

“Then you shall love me—­even in hell!”
he said, through his clenched teeth, and locked her
in the iron circle of his arms.

She did not resist him. She was very near the
end of her strength. Only, as he held her, her
eyes met his, mutely imploring him....

It reached him even in his madness, that unspoken
appeal. It checked him in the mid-furnace of
his passion. His hold relaxed as if at a word
of command. He put her into a chair and turned
himself from her.

The next moment he was fumbling desperately at the
window fastening. The night met him on the threshold.
He heard her weeping, piteously, hopelessly, as he
went away.

CHAPTER X

THE DESERT PLACE

A single light shone across the verandah when Bernard
Monck returned late in the night. It drew his
steps though it did not come from any of the sitting-rooms.
With the light tread often characteristic of heavy
men, he approached it, realizing only at the last moment
that it came from the window of his brother’s
room.

Then for a second he hesitated. He was angry
with Everard, more angry than he could remember that
he had ever been before. He questioned with himself
as to the wisdom of seeing him again that night.
He doubted if he could be ordinarily civil to him
at present, and a quarrel would help no one.

Still why was the fellow burning a light at that hour?
An unacknowledged uneasiness took possession of him
and drove him forward. People seemed to do all
manner of extravagant things in this fantastic country
that they would never have dreamed of doing in homely
old England. There must be something electric
in the atmosphere that penetrated the veins. Even
he had been aware of it now and then, a strange and
potent influence that drove a man to passionate deeds.

He reached the window without sound just as Stella
had reached it on that night of rain long ago.
With no consciousness of spying, driven by an urgent
impulse he could not stop to question, he looked in.

The window was ajar, as if it had been pushed to negligently
by someone entering, and in a flash Bernard had it
wide. He went in as though he had been propelled.

A man—­Everard—­was standing half-dressed
in the middle of the room. He was facing the
window, and the light shone with ghastly distinctness
upon his face. But he did not look up. He
was gazing fixedly into a glass of water he held in
his hand, apparently watching some minute substance
melting there.

It was not the thing he held, but the look upon his
face, that sent Bernard forward with a spring.
“Man!” he burst forth. “What
are you doing?”

Page 175

Everard gave utterance to a fierce oath that was more
like the cry of a savage animal than the articulate
speech of a man. He stepped back sharply, and
put the glass to his lips. But no drop that it
contained did he swallow, for in the same instant
Bernard flung it violently aside. The glass spun
across the room, and they grappled together for the
mastery. For a few seconds the battle was hot;
then very suddenly the elder man threw up his hands.

“All right,” he said, between short gasps
for breath. “You can hammer me—­if
you want someone to hammer. Perhaps—­it’ll
do you good.”

He was free on the instant. Everard flung round
and turned his back. He did not speak, but crossed
the room and picked up the glass which lay unbroken
on the floor.

Bernard followed him, still gasping for breath, “Give
that to me!” he said.

His soft voice was oddly stern. Everard looked
at him. His hand, shaking a little, was extended.
After a very definite pause, he placed the glass within
it. There was a little white sediment left with
a drain of water at the bottom. With his blue
eyes full upon his brother’s face, Bernard lifted
it to his own lips.

But the next instant it was dashed away, and the glass
shivered to atoms against the wall. “You—­fool!”
Everard said.

A faint, faint smile that very strangely proclaimed
a resemblance between them which was very seldom perceptible
crossed Bernard’s face. “I—­thought
so,” he said. “Now look here, boy!
Let’s stop being melodramatic for a bit!
Take a dose of quinine instead! It seems to be
the panacea for all evils in this curious country.”

His voice was perfectly kind, even persusaive, but
it carried a hint of authority as well, and Everard
gave him a keen look as if aware of it.

He was very pale but absolutely steady as he made
reply. “I don’t think quinine will
meet the case on this occasion.”

“You prefer another kind of medicine,”
Bernard suggested. And then with sudden feeling
he held out his hand. “Everard, old chap,
never do that while you’ve a single friend left
in the world! Do you want to break my heart?
I only ask to stand by you. I’ll stand by
you to the very gates of hell. Don’t you
know that?”

His voice trembled slightly. Everard turned and
gripped the proffered hand hard in his own.

“I suppose I—­might have known,”
he said. “But it’s a bit rash of you
all the same.”

His own voice quivered though he forced a smile.
He would have turned away, but Bernard restrained
him.

“I don’t care a tinker’s damn what
you’ve done,” he said forcibly. “Remember
that! We’re brothers, and I’ll stick
to you. If there’s anything in life that
I can do to help, I’ll do it. If there isn’t,
well, I won’t worry you, but you know you can
count on me just the same. You’ll never
stand alone while I live.”

It was generously spoken. The words came straight
from his soul. He put his hand on his brother’s
shoulder as he uttered them. His eyes were as
tender as the eyes of a woman.

Page 176

And suddenly, without warning, Everard’s strength
failed him. It was like the snapping of a stretched
wire. “Oh, man!” he said, and covered
his face.

Bernard’s arm was round him in a moment, a staunch,
upholding arm. “Everard—­dear
old chap—­can’t you tell me what it
is?” he said. “God knows I’ll
die sooner than let you down.”

Everard did not answer. His breathing was hard,
spasmodic, intensely painful to hear. He had
the look of a man stricken in his pride.

For a space Bernard stood dumbly supporting him.
Then at length very quietly he moved and guided him
to a chair.

“Take your time!” he said gently.
“Sit down!”

Mutely Everard submitted. The agony of that night
had stripped his manhood of its reserve. He sat
crouched, his head bowed upon his clenched hands.

“Wait while I fetch you a drink!” Bernard
said.

He was gone barely two minutes. Returning, he
fastened the window and drew the curtain across.
Then he bent again over the huddled figure in the
chair.

The words were only just audible, but Bernard caught
them. “No,—­give you strength
to play the game,” he said, and held the glass
he had brought to his brother’s lips.

Everard drank with closed eyes and sat forward again
motionless. His face was bloodless. “I’m
sorry, St. Bernard,” he said, after a moment.
“Forgive me for manhandling you—­and
all the rest, if you can!” He drew a long, hard
breath. “Thanks for everything! Good-night!”

“But I’m not leaving you,” said
Bernard, gently. “Not like this.”

“Like what?” Everard opened his eyes with
an abrupt effort. “Oh, I’m all right.
Don’t you bother about me!” he said.

Their eyes met. For a second longer Bernard stood
over him. Then he went down upon his knees by
his side. “I swear I won’t leave you,”
he said, “until you’ve told me this trouble
of yours.”

Everard shook his head instantly, but his hand went
out and closed upon the arm that had upheld him.
He was beginning to recover his habitual self-command.
“It’s no good, old chap. I can’t,”
he said. And added almost involuntarily, “That’s—­the
hell of it!”

“But you can,” Bernard said. He still
looked him straight in the eyes. “You can
and you will. Call it a confession—­I’ve
heard a good many in my time—­and tell me
everything!”

“Confess to you!” A hint of surprise showed
in Everard’s heavy eyes. “You’d
better not tempt me to do that,” he said.
“You might be sorry afterwards.”

“I will risk it,” Bernard said.

“Risk being made an accessory to—­what
you may regard as a crime?” Everard said.
“Forgive me—­you’re a parson,
I know,—­but are you sure you can play the
part?”

Bernard smiled a little at the question. “Yes,
I can,” he said. “A confession is
sacred—­whatever it is. And I swear
to you—­by God in Heaven—­to treat
it as such.”

Page 177

Everard was looking at him fixedly, but something
of the strain went out of his look at the words.
A gleam of relief crossed his face.

“Am I? You’re a good chap, St. Bernard.
Look here, don’t kneel there! It’s
not suitable for a father confessor,” Everard’s
faint smile showed for a moment.

Bernard’s hand closed upon his. “Go
ahead!” he said again, “I’m all
right.”

Everard made an abrupt gesture that had in it something
of surrender. “It’s soon told,”
he said, “though I don’t know why I should
burden you with it. That fellow Ralph Dacre—­I
didn’t murder him. I wish to Heaven I had.
So far as I know—­he is alive.”

“Ah!” Bernard said

Jerkily, with obvious effort, Everard continued.
“I’m a murderous brute no doubt.
But if I had the chance to kill him now, I’d
take it. You see what it means, don’t you?
It means that Stella—­that Stella—­”
He broke off with a convulsive movement, and dropped
back into a tortured silence.

“Yes. I see what it means,” Bernard
said.

After an interval Everard forced out a few more words.
“About a fortnight after their marriage I got
your letter telling me he had a wife living.
I went straight after them in native disguise, and
made him clear out. That’s the whole story.”

“I see,” Bernard said again.

Again there fell a silence between them. Everard
sat bowed, his head on his hand. The awful pallor
was passing, but the stricken look remained.

Bernard spoke at last. “You have no idea
what became of him?”

“Not the faintest. He went. That was
all that concerned me.” Grimly, without
lifting his head, he made answer. “You know
the rest—­or you can guess. Then you
came, and told me that the woman—­Dacre’s
wife—­died before his marriage to Stella.
I’ve been in hell ever since.”

Everard shifted his position slightly to glance at
him. “Don’t wish that!” he
said. “After all, it would probably have
come out somehow.”

“And—­Stella?” Bernard spoke
with hesitation, as if uncertain of his ground.
“What does she think? How much does she
know?”

“She thinks like the rest. She thinks I
murdered the hound. And I’d rather she
thought that,” there was dogged suffering in
Everard’s voice, “than suspected the truth.”

“You think—­” Bernard still
spoke with slight hesitation—­“that
will hurt her less?”

“Yes.” There was stubborn conviction
in the reply. Everard slowly straightened himself
and faced his brother squarely. “There is—­the
child,” he said.

Page 178

Bernard shook his head slightly. “You’re
wrong, old fellow. You’re making a mistake.
You are choosing the hardest course for her as well
as yourself.”

Everard’s jaw hardened. “I shall
find a way out for myself,” he said. “She
shall be left in peace.”

“What do you mean?” Bernard said.
Then as he made no reply, he took him firmly by the
shoulders. “No—­no! You won’t.
You won’t,” he said. “That’s
not you, my boy—­not when you’ve sanely
thought it out.”

Everard suffered his hold; but his face remained set
in grim lines. “There is no other way,”
he said. “Honestly, I see no other way.”

“There is another way.” Very steadily,
with the utmost confidence, Bernard made the assertion.
“There always is. God sees to that.
You’ll find it presently.”

Everard smiled very wearily at the words. “I’ve
given up expecting any light from that quarter,”
he said. “It seems to me that He hasn’t
much use for the wanderers once they get off the beaten
track.”

“Oh, my dear chap!” Bernard’s hands
pressed upon him suddenly. “Do you really
believe He has no care for that which is lost?
Have you blundered along all this time and never yet
seen the lamp in the desert? You will see it—­like
every other wanderer—­sooner or later, if
you only have the pluck to keep on.”

“You seem mighty sure of that.” Everard
looked at him with a species of dull curiosity.
“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am sure.” Bernard spoke
vigorously. “And so are you in your heart.
You know very well that if you only push on you won’t
be left to die in the wilderness. Have you never
thought to yourself after a particularly dark spell
that there has always been a speck of light somewhere—­never
total darkness for any length of time? That’s
the lamp in the desert, old chap. And—­whether
you realize it or not—­God put it there.”

He ceased to speak, and rose quietly to his feet;
then, as Everard stretched a hand to him, gave him
a steady pull upwards. They stood face to face.

“And that,” Bernard added, after a few
moments, “is all I’ve got to say.
You turn in now and get a rest! If you want me,
well, you know where to find me—­just any
time.”

“Thanks!” Everard said. His hand
held his brother’s hard. “But—­before
you go—­there’s one thing I want to
say—­no, two.” A shadowy smile
touched his grim lips and vanished. His eyes were
still and wholly remote, sheltering his soul.

“Go ahead!” said Bernard gently.

Everard paused for a second. “You have
asked no promise of me,” he said then; “but—­I’ll
make you one. And I want one from you in return.”

Again he paused, as if he had some difficulty in finding
words.

“You can rely on me,” Bernard said.

“Yes, old fellow.” For an instant
his eyes smiled also. “I know it. It’s
by that fact alone that you’ve gained your point.
And so I’ll hang on somehow for the present—­find
another way—­anyhow hang on, just because
you are what you are—­and because—­”
his voice sank a little—­“you care.”

Page 179

“Don’t you know I love you before any
one else in the world?” Bernard said, giving
him a mighty grip.

“Yes,” Everard looked him straight in
the face, “I do. And it means more to me
than perhaps you think. In fact—­it’s
everything to me just now. That’s why I
want you to promise me—­whatever happens—­whatever
I decide to do—­that you will stay within
reach of—­that you will take care of—­my—­my—­of
Stella.” He ended abruptly, with a quick
gesture that held entreaty.

And Bernard’s reply came instantly, almost before
he had ceased to speak. “Before God, old
chap, I will.”

“Thanks,” Everard said again. He
stood for a few moments as if debating something further,
but in the end he freed himself and turned away.
“She will be all right, with you,” he
said. “You’re—­safe anyhow.”

“Quite safe,” said Bernard steadily.

PART V

CHAPTER I

GREATER THAN DEATH

“If you ask me,” said Bertie Oakes, propping
himself up in an elegant attitude against a pillar
of the Club verandah, “it’s my belief that
there’s going to be—­a bust-up.”

“Nobody did ask you,” observed Tommy rudely.

He generally was rude nowadays, and had been haled
before a subalterns’ court-martial only the
previous evening for that very reason. The sentence
passed had been of a somewhat drastic nature, and certainly
had not improved his temper or his manners. To
be stripped, bound scientifically, and “dipped”
in the Club swimming-bath till, as Oakes put it, all
the venom had been drenched out of him, was an experience
for which only one utterly reckless would qualify twice.

Tommy had come through it with a dumb endurance which
had somewhat spoilt the occasion for his tormentors,
had gone back to The Green Bungalow as soon as his
punishment was over, and for the first time had drunk
heavily in the privacy of his room.

He sat now in a huddled position on the Club verandah,
“looking like a sick chimpanzee” as Oakes
assured him, “ready to bite—­if he
dared—­at a moment’s notice.”

Mrs. Ralston was seated near. She had a motherly
eye upon Tommy.

“Now what exactly do you mean by a ‘bust-up,’
Mr. Oakes?” she asked with her gentle smile.

Oakes blew a cloud of smoke upwards. He liked
airing his opinions, especially when there were several
ladies within earshot.

“What do I mean?” he said, with a pomposity
carefully moulded upon the Colonel’s mode of
delivery on a guest-night. “I mean, my dear
Mrs. Ralston, that which would have to be suppressed—­a
rising among the native element of the State.”

“Ape!” growled Tommy under his breath.

Oakes caught the growl, and made a downward motion
with his thumb which only Tommy understood.

Mrs. Burton’s soft, false laugh filled the pause
that followed his pronouncement. “Surely
no one could openly object to the conviction of a
native murderer!” she said. “I hear
that the evidence is quite conclusive. Captain
Monck has spared no pains in that direction.”

Page 180

“Captain Monck,” observed Lady Harriet,
elevating her long nose, “seems to be exceptionally
well qualified for that kind of service.”

“Set a thief to catch a thief, what?”
suggested Oakes lightly. “Yes, he seems
to be quite good at it. Just as well in a way,
perhaps. Someone has got to do the dirty work,
though it would be preferable for all of us if he
were a policeman by profession.”

It was too carelessly spoken to sound actively malevolent.
But Tommy, with his arms gripped round his knees,
raised eyes of bloodshot fury to the speaker’s
face.

“If any one could take a first class certificate
for dirty work, it would be you,” he said, speaking
very distinctly between clenched teeth.

A sudden silence fell upon the assembly. Oakes
looked down at Tommy, and Tommy glared up at Oakes.

Then abruptly Major Ralston, who had been standing
in the background with a tall drink in his hand, slouched
forward and let himself down ponderously on the edge
of the verandah by Tommy’s side.

“Go away, Bertie!” he said. “We’ve
listened to your wind instrument long enough.
Tommy, you shut up, or I’ll give you the beastliest
physic I know! What were we talking about?
Mary, give us a lead!”

He appealed to his wife, who glanced towards Lady
Harriet with a hint of embarrassment.

Major Ralston at once addressed himself to her.
He was never embarrassed by any one, and never went
out of his way to be pleasant without good reason.

“This murder trial is going to be sensational,”
he said, “I’ve just got back from giving
evidence as to the cause of death and I have it on
good authority that a certain august personage in
Markestan is shaking in his shoes as to the result
of the business.”

“I have heard that too,” said Lady Harriet.

It was a curious fact that though she was always ready,
and would even go out of her way, to snub the surgeon’s
wife, she had never once been other than gracious
to the surgeon.

“I don’t suppose he will be actively implicated.
He’s too wily for that,” went on Major
Ralston. “But there’s not much doubt
according to Barnes, that he was in the know—­very
much so, I should imagine.” He glanced
about him. “Mrs. Ermsted isn’t here,
is she?”

“No dear. I left her resting,” his
wife said. “This affair is very trying
for her—­naturally.” He assented
somewhat grimly. “I wonder she stayed for
it. Now Tessa on the other hand yearns for the
murderer’s head in a charger. That child
is getting too Eastern in her ideas. It will
be a good thing to get her Home.”

Mrs. Burton intervened with a simper. “Yes,
she really is a naughty little thing, and I cannot
say I shall be sorry when she is gone. My small
son is at such a very receptive age.”

“Yes, he’s old enough to go to school
and be licked into shape,” said Major Ralston
brutally. “He flings stones at my car every
time I pass. I shall stop and give him a licking
myself some day when I have time.”

Page 181

“Really, Major Ralston, I hope you will not
do anything so cruel,” protested Mrs. Burton.
“We never correct him in that way ourselves.”

“Pity you don’t,” said Major Ralston.
“An unlicked cub is an insult to creation.
Give him to me for a little while! I’ll
undertake to improve him both morally and physically
to such an extent that you won’t know him.”

Here Tommy uttered a brief, wholly involuntary guffaw.

“What’s the matter with you?” said
Ralston.

“Nothing.” His gloom dropped upon
him again like a mantle. “Have you been
at Khanmulla all day?”

“Yes; a confounded waste of time it’s
been too.” Ralston took a deep drink and
set down his glass.

“You always think it’s a waste of time
if you can’t be doctoring somebody,” muttered
Tommy.

“Don’t be offensive!” said Ralston.
“I know what’s the matter with you, my
son, but I should keep it to myself if I were you.
As a matter of fact I did give medical advice to somebody
this afternoon—­which of course he won’t
take.”

Tommy’s face was suddenly scarlet. It was
solely the maternal protective instinct that induced
Mrs. Ralston to bend forward and speak.

“Do you mean Captain Monck, Gerald?” she
asked.

Major Ralston cast a comprehensive glance around the
little group assembled near him, finishing his survey
upon Tommy’s burning countenance. “Yes—­Monck,”
he said. “He’s staying with Barnes
at Khanmulla to see this affair through. If I
were Mrs. Monck I should be pretty anxious about him.
He says it’s insomnia.”

“Is he ill?” It was Tommy who spoke, his
voice quick and low, all the sullen embarrassment
gone from his demeanour.

The doctor’s eyes dwelt upon him for a moment
longer before he answered. “I never saw
such a change in any man in such a short time.
He’ll have a bad break-down if he doesn’t
watch out.”

“He works too hard,” said Mrs. Ralston
sympathetically.

Her husband nodded. “If it weren’t
for that sickly baby of hers, I should advise his
wife to go straight to him and look after him.
But perhaps when this trial is over he will be able
to take a rest. I shall order the whole family
to Bhulwana if I get the chance.” He got
up with the words, and faced the company with a certain
dogged aggressiveness that compelled attention.
“It’s hard,” he said, “to see
a fine chap like that knocked out. He’s
about the best man we’ve got, and we can’t
afford to lose him.”

He waited for someone to take up the challenge, but
no one showed any inclination to do so. Only
after a moment Tommy also sprang up as if there was
something in the situation that chafed him beyond endurance.

Ralston looked at him again, critically, not over-favourably.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
he said.

Tommy hunched his shoulders, all defiance in a second.
“Going for a ride,” he growled. “Any
objection?”

Page 182

Tommy strode wrathfully away to the sound of Mrs.
Burton’s tittering laugh. With the exception
of Mrs. Ralston, who really did not count, he hated
every one of the party that he left behind on the Club
verandah, and he did not attempt to disguise the fact.

But when an hour later he rolled off his horse in
the compound of the policeman’s bungalow at
Khanmulla, his mood had undergone a complete change.
There was nothing defiant or even assertive about him
as he applied for admittance. He looked beaten,
tried beyond his strength.

It was growing rapidly dark as he followed Barnes’s
khansama into the long bare room which he used
as his private office. The man brought him a
lamp and told him that the sahibs would be back
soon. They had gone down to the Court House again,
but they might return at any time.

He also brought him whisky and soda which Tommy did
not touch, spending the interval of waiting that ensued
in fevered tramping to and fro.

He had not seen Monck alone since the evening of Tessa’s
birthday-party nearly three weeks before. On
the score of business connected with the approaching
trial, Monck had come to Khanmulla immediately afterwards,
and no one at Kurrumpore had had more than an occasional
glimpse of him since. But he meant to see him
alone now, and he had given very explicit instructions
to that effect to the servant, accompanied by a substantial
species of persuasion that could not fail to achieve
its object.

When the sound of voices told him at last of the return
of the two men, he drew back out of sight of the window
while the obsequious khansama went forth upon
his errand. Then a moment or two later he heard
them separate, and one alone came in his direction.
Everard entered with the gait of a tired man.

The lamp dazzled him for a second, and Tommy saw him
first. He smothered an involuntary exclamation
and stepped forward.

“Tommy!” said Monck, as if incredulous.

Tommy stood in front of him, his hands at his sides.
“Yes, it’s me. I had to come over—­just
to have a look at you. Ralston said—­said—­oh,
damn it, it doesn’t matter what he said.
Only I had to—­just come and see for myself.
You see, I—­I—­” he faltered
badly, but recovered himself under the straight gaze
of Everard’s eyes—­“I can’t
get the thought of you out of my mind. I’ve
been a damn’ cur. You won’t want to
speak to me of course, but when Ralston started jawing
about you this afternoon, I found—­I found—­”
he choked suddenly—­“I couldn’t
stand it any longer,” he said in a strangled
whisper.

Monck was looking full at him by the merciless glare
of the lamp on the table, which revealed himself very
fully also. All the grim lines in his face seemed
to be accentuated. He looked years older.
The hair above his temples gleamed silver where it
caught the light.

Page 183

He did not speak at once. Only as Tommy made
a blind movement as if to go, he put forth a hand
and took him by the arm.

“Tommy,” he said, “what have you
been doing?”

Out of deep hollows his eyes looked forth, indomitable,
relentless as they had ever been, searching the boy’s
downcast face.

Tommy quivered a little under their piercing scrutiny,
but he made no attempt to avoid it.

“Look at me!” Monck commanded.

He raised his eyes for a moment, and in spite of himself
Monck was softened by the utter misery they held.

“You always were an ass,” he commented.
“But I thought you had more strength of mind
than this.”

Tommy made an impotent gesture. “I’m
a beast—­I’m a skunk!” he declared,
with tremulous vehemence. “I’m not
fit to speak to you!”

The shadow of a smile crossed Monck’s face.
“And you’ve come all this way to tell
me so?” he said. “You’ve no
business here either. You ought to be at the
Mess.”

“Damn the Mess!” said Tommy fiercely.
“They’ll tell me I ratted to-morrow.
I don’t care. Let ’em say what they
like! It’s you that matters. Man,
how infernally ill you look!”

Monck checked the personal allusion. “I’m
not ill. But what have you been up to? Are
you in a row?”

His voice held sudden pleading, but his face was turned
away. He had meant to say more, but could not.
He stood biting his lips desperately in a mute struggle
for self-control.

Everard waited a few seconds, giving him time; then
abruptly he moved, slapped a hand on Tommy’s
shoulder and gave him a shake.

“Tommy, don’t be so beastly cheap!
I’m ashamed of you. What’s the matter?”

Tommy yielded impulsively to the bracing grip, but
he kept his face averted. “That’s
just it,” he blurted out. “I feel
cheap. Fact is, I came—­I came to ask
you to—­forgive me. But now I’m
here,—­I’m damned if I have the cheek.”

“What do you want my forgiveness for? I
thought I was the transgressor.” Everard’s
voice was a curious blend of humour and sadness.

Tommy turned to him with a sudden boyish gesture so
spontaneous as to override all barriers. “Oh,
I know all that. But it doesn’t count.
See? I don’t know how I ever had the infernal
presumption to think it did, or to ask you—­you,
of all men—­to explain your actions.
I don’t want any explanation. I believe
in you without, simply because I can’t help it.
I know—­without any proof,—­that
you’re sound. And—­and—­I
beg your pardon for being such a cur as to doubt you.
There! That’s what I came to say.
Now it’s your turn.”

The tears were in his eyes, but he made no further
attempt to hide them. All that was great in his
nature had come to the surface, and there was no room
left for self-consciousness.

Page 184

Monck realized it, and it affected him deeply, depriving
him of the power to respond. He had not expected
this from Tommy, had not believed him capable of it.
But there was no doubting the boy’s sincerity.
Through those tears which Tommy had forgotten to hide,
he saw the old loving trust shine out at him, the
old whole-hearted admiration and honour offered again
without reservation and without stint.

He opened his lips to speak, but something rose in
his throat, preventing him. He held out his hand
in silence, and in that wordless grip the love which
is greater than death made itself felt between them—­a
bond imperishable which no earthly circumstance could
ever again violate—­the Power Omnipotent
which conquers all things.

CHAPTER II

THE LAMP

The orange light of the morning was breaking over
the jungle when two horsemen rode out upon the Kurrumpore
road and halted between the rice fields.

“All right; for the present. My love to
Bernard.” Everard spoke with his usual
brevity, but his handclasp was remembered by Tommy
for a very long time after.

“And to Stella?” he said, pushing his
horse a little nearer till it muzzled against its
fellow.

Everard’s eyes, grave and dark, looked out to
the low horizon. “I think not,” he
said. “She has—­no further use
for it.”

“She will have,” said Tommy quickly.

But Everard passed the matter by in silence.
“You must be getting on,” he said, and
relaxed his grip. “Good-bye, old chap!
You’ve done me good, if that is any consolation
to you.”

“Oh, man!” said Tommy, and coloured like
a girl. “Not—­not really!”

Everard uttered his curt laugh, and switched Tommy’s
mount across the withers. “Be off with
you, you—­cuckoo!” he said.

And Tommy grinned and went.

Half-an-hour later he was sounding an impatient tatto
upon his sister’s door.

She came herself to admit him, but the look upon her
face checked the greeting on his lips.

“What on earth’s the matter?” he
said instead.

She was shivering as if with cold, though the risen
sun had filled the world with spring-like warmth.
It occurred to him as he entered, that she was looking
pinched and ill, and he put a comforting arm around
her.

“What is it, Stella girl? Tell me!”

She relaxed against him with a sob. “I’ve
been—­horribly anxious about you,”
she said.

“Oh, is that all?” said Tommy. “What
a waste of time! I was only over at Khanmulla.
I spent the night at Barnes’s bungalow because
they wouldn’t trust me in the jungle after dark.”

Page 185

“They?” she questioned.

“Barnes and Everard,” Tommy said, and
faced her squarely. “I went to see Everard.”

“Ah!” She caught her breath. “Major
Ralston has been here. He told me—­he
told me—­” her voice failed; she laid
her head down upon Tommy’s shoulder.

He tightened his arm about her. “It’s
a shame of Ralston to frighten you. He isn’t
ill.” Then a sudden thought striking him,
“What was he doing here so early? Isn’t
the kid up to the mark?”

She shivered against him again. “He had
a strange attack in the night, and Major Ralston said—­said—­oh,
Tommy,” she suddenly clung to him, “I
am going to lose him. He—­isn’t—­like
other children.”

“Ralston said that?” demanded Tommy.

“He didn’t tell me. He told Bernard.
I practically forced Bernard to tell me, but I think
he thought I ought to know. He said—­he
said—­it isn’t to be desired that
my baby should live.”

With her face hidden against him she made whispered
answer. “You know he—­came too
soon. They thought at first he was all right,
but now—­symptoms have begun to show themselves.
We thought he was just delicate, but it isn’t
only that. Last night—­in the night—­”
she shuddered suddenly and violently and paused to
control herself—­“I can’t talk
about it. It was terrible. Major Ralston
says he doesn’t suffer, but it looks like suffering.
And, oh, Tommy,—­he is all I have left.”

Tommy held her comfortingly close. “I say,
wouldn’t you like Everard to come to you?”
he said.

“Oh no! Oh no!” Her refusal was instant.
“I can’t see him. Tommy, why suggest
such a thing? You know I can’t.”

“I know he’s a good man,” Tommy
said steadily. “Just listen a minute, old
girl! I know things look black enough against
him, so black that it’s probable he’ll
have to send in his papers. But I tell you he’s
all right. I didn’t think so at first.
I thought the same as you do. But somehow that
suspicion has got worn out. It was pretty beastly
while it lasted, but I came to my senses at last.
And I’ve been to tell him so. He was jolly
decent about it, though he didn’t tell me a thing.
I didn’t want him to. Besides, he always
is decent. How could he be otherwise? And
now we’re just as we were—­friends.”

There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Tommy’s
voice. He even spoke with pride, and hearing
it, Stella withdrew herself slowly and wearily from
his arms.

“It’s rather different for you, Tommy,”
she said. “A man’s standards are
different, I know. There may be what you call
extenuating circumstances—­though I can’t
quite imagine it. I’m too tired to argue
about it, Tommy dear, and you mustn’t be vexed
with me. I can’t go into it with you, but
I feel as if it is I—­I myself—­who
have committed an awful sin. And it has got to
be expiated, perhaps that is why my baby is to be
taken from me. Bernard says it is not so.
But then—­Bernard is a man too.”
There was a sound of heartbreak in her voice as she
ended. She put up her hands with a gesture as
of trying to put away some monstrous thing that threatened
to crush her—­a gesture that went straight
to Tommy’s warm heart.

Page 186

“Oh, poor old girl!” he said impulsively,
and took the hands into his own. “I say,
ought I to be in here? Aren’t you supposed
to be resting?”

She smiled at him wanly. “I believe I am.
Major Ralston left a soothing draught, but I wouldn’t
take it, in case—­” she broke off.
“Peter is on guard as well as Ayah, and
he has promised to call me if—­if—­”
Again she stopped. “I don’t think
Ayah is much good,” she resumed.
“She was nearly frightened out of her senses
last night. She seems to think there is something—­supernatural
about it. But Peter—­Peter is a tower
of strength. I trust him implicitly.”

“Yes, he’s a good chap,” said Tommy.
“I’m glad you’ve got him anyway.
I wish I could be more of a help to you.”

She leaned forward and kissed him. “You
are very dear to me, Tommy. I don’t know
what I should do without you and Bernard.”

“Where is the worthy padre?” asked Tommy.

“He may be working in his room. He is certainly
not far away. He never is nowadays.”

“I’ll go and find him,” said Tommy.
“But look here, dear! Have that draught
of Ralston’s and lie down! Just to please
me!”

She began to refuse, but Tommy could be very persuasive
when he chose, and he chose on this occasion.
Finally, with reluctance she yielded, since, as he
pointed out, she needed all the strength she could
muster.

He tucked her up with motherly care, feeling that
he had accomplished something worth doing, and then,
seeing that exhaustion would do the rest, he left
her and went softly forth in search of Bernard.

The latter, however, was not in the bungalow, and
since it was growing late Tommy had a hurried bath
and dressed for parade. He was bolting a hasty
tiffin in the dining-room when a quiet step
on the verandah warned him of Bernard’s approach,
and in a moment or two the big man entered, a pipe
in his mouth and a book under his arm.

“Hullo, Tommy!” he said with his genial
smile. “So you haven’t been murdered
this time. I congratulate you.”

“Thanks!” said Tommy.

“I congratulate myself also,” said Bernard,
patting his shoulder by way of greeting. “If
it weren’t against my principles, I should have
been very worried about you, my lad. For I couldn’t
get away to look for you.”

“Of course not,” said Tommy. “And
I was safe enough. I’ve been over to Khanmulla.
Everard made me spend the night, and we rode back this
morning.”

“Everard! He isn’t here?” Bernard
looked round sharply.

“No,” said Tommy bluntly. “But
he ought to be. He went back again. He is
wanted for that trial business. I say, things
are pretty rotten here, aren’t they? Is
the little kid past hope?”

“I am afraid so.” Bernard spoke very
gravely. His kindly face was more sombre than
Tommy had ever seen it.

Page 187

Bernard shook his head. “Nothing whatever
I am afraid. Major Ralston has suspected trouble
for some time, it seems. We might of course get
a specialist’s opinion at Calcutta, but the
baby is utterly unfit for a journey of any kind, and
it is doubtful if any doctor would come all this way—­especially
with things as they are.”

“What do you mean?” said Tommy.

Bernard looked at him. “The place is a
hotbed of discontent—­if not anarchy.
Surely you know that!”

“Yes. And matters are getting worse.
I hear that the result of this trial will probably
mean the Rajah’s enforced abdication. And
if that happens there is practically bound to be a
rising.”

Tommy laughed. “That’s been the situation
as long as I’ve been out. We’re giving
him enough rope, and I hope he’ll hang, though
I’m afraid he won’t. The rising will
probably be a sort of Chinese cracker affair—­a
fizz, a few bangs, and a splutter-out. No honour
and glory for any one!”

“I hope you are right,” said Bernard.

“And I hope I’m wrong,” said Tommy
lightly. “I like a run for my money.”

“You forget the women,” said Bernard abruptly.

Tommy opened his eyes. “No, I don’t.
They’ll be all right. They’ll have
to clear out to Bhulwana a little earlier than usual.
They’ll be safe enough there. You can go
and look after ’em, sir. They’ll like
that.”

“Thank you, Tommy.” Bernard smiled
in spite of himself. “It’s kind of
you to put it so tactfully. Now tell me what you
think of Everard. Is he really ill?”

“No; worried to death, that’s all.
He’s talking of sending in his papers.
Did you know?”

“I suspected he would,” Bernard spoke
thoughtfully.

“He mustn’t do it!” said Tommy with
vehemence. “He’s worth all the rest
of the Mess put together. You mustn’t let
him.”

Bernard lifted his brows. “I let him!”
he said. “Do you think he is going to do
what I tell him?”

“I know you have influence—­considerable
influence—­with him,” Tommy said.
“You ought to use it, sir. You really ought.
It’s up to you and no one else.”

He spoke insistently. Bernard looked at him attentively.

“You’ve changed your tune somewhat, haven’t
you, Tommy?” he said.

“Yes,” said Tommy bluntly. “I
have. I’ve been a damn’ fool if you
want to know—­the biggest, damnedest fool
on the face of creation. And I’ve been
and told him so.”

“For no particular reason?” Bernard’s
blue eyes grew keener in their regard. He looked
at Tommy with more interest than he had ever before
bestowed upon him.

Tommy’s face was red, but he replied without
embarrassment. “Certainly. I’ve
come to my senses, that’s all. I’ve
come to realize—­what I really knew all
along—­that he’s a white man, white
all through, however black he chooses to be painted.
And I’m ashamed that I ever doubted him.”

Page 188

“No!” said Tommy, and his voice rang on
a note of indignant pride. “Why the devil
should he tell me anything? I’m his friend.
Thank the gods, I can trust him without.”

Bernard held out his hand suddenly. The interest
had turned to something warmer. He looked at
the boy with genuine admiration. “I take
off my hat to you, Tommy,” he said. “Everard
is a deuced lucky man.”

“What?” said Tommy, and turned deep crimson.
“Oh, rot, sir! That’s rot!”
He gripped the extended hand with warmth notwithstanding.
“It’s all the other way round. I
can’t tell you what he’s been to me.
Why, I—­I’d die for him, if I had
the chance.”

“Yes,” Bernard said with simplicity.
“I’m sure you would, boy. And it’s
just that I like about you. You’re just
the sort of friend he needs—­the sort of
friend God sends along to hold up the lamp when the
night is dark. There! You want to be off.
I won’t keep you. But you’re a white
man yourself, Tommy, and I shan’t forget it.”

“Oh, rats—­rats—­rats!”
said Tommy rudely, and escaped through the window
at headlong speed.

CHAPTER III

TESSA’S MOTHER

“It really isn’t my fault,” said
Netta fretfully. “I don’t see why
you should lecture me about it, Mary. I can’t
help being attractive.”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Ralston patiently,
“that was not my point. I am only urging
you to show a little discretion. You do not want
to be an object of scandal, I am sure. The finger
of suspicion has been pointed at the Rajah a good
many times lately, and I do think that for Tessa’s
sake, if not for your own, you ought to put a check
upon your intimacy with him.

“Bother Tessa!” said Netta. “I
don’t see that I owe her anything.”

Mrs. Ralston sighed a little, but she persevered.
“The child is at an age when she needs the most
careful training. Surely you want her to respect
you!”

Netta laughed. “I really don’t care
a straw what she does. Tessa doesn’t interest
me. I wanted a boy, you know. I never had
any use for girls. Besides, she gets on my nerves
at every turn. We shall never be kindred spirits.”

“Poor little Tessa!” said Mrs. Ralston
gently. “She has such a loving heart.”

“I think—­in fact I am sure—­that
love begets love,” said Mrs. Ralston. “Perhaps
when you and she get to England together, you will
become more to each other.”

“Out of sheer ennui?” suggested
Netta. “Oh, don’t let’s talk
of England—­I hate the thought of it.
I’m sure I was created for the East. Hence
the sympathy that exists between the Rajah and myself.
You know, Mary, you really are absurdly prejudiced
against him. Richard was the same. He never
had any cause to be jealous. They simply didn’t
come into the same category.”

Page 189

Mrs. Ralston looked at her with wonder in her eyes.
“You seem to forget,” she said, “that
Richard’s murderer is being tried, and that
this man is very strongly suspected of being an abettor
if not the actual instigator of the crime.”

Netta flicked the ash from her cigarette with a gesture
of impatience. “I only wish you would let
me forget these unpleasant things,” she said.
“Why don’t you go and preach a sermon to
the beautiful Stella Monck on the same text?
Ralph Dacre’s death was quite as much of a mystery.
And the kindly gossips are every bit as busy with
Captain Monck’s reputation as with His Excellency’s.
But I suppose her devotion to that wretched little
imbecile baby of hers renders her immune!”

She spoke with intentional malice, but she scarcely
expected to strike home. Mary was not, in her
estimation, over-endowed with brains, and she never
seemed to mind a barbed thrust or two. But on
this occasion Mrs. Ralston upset her calculations.

She arose in genuine wrath. “Netta!”
she said. “I think you are the most heartless,
callous woman I have ever met!”

And with that she went straight from the room, shutting
the door firmly behind her.

“Good gracious!” commented Netta.
“Mary in a tantrum! What an exciting spectacle!”

She stretched her slim body like a cat as she lay
with the warm sunshine pouring over her, and presently
she laughed.

She pursed her lips over the adjective as if she rather
enjoyed it, then stretched herself again luxuriously,
with sensuous enjoyment. She had riden with the
Rajah in the early morning, and was pleasantly tired.

The sudden approach of Tessa, scampering along the
verandah in the wake of Scooter, sent a quick frown
to her face, which deepened swiftly as Scooter, dodging
nimbly, ran into the room and went to earth behind
a bamboo screen.

Tessa sprang in after him, but pulled up sharply at
sight of her mother. The frown upon Netta’s
face was instantly reflected upon her own. She
stood expectant of rebuke.

“What a noisy child you are!” said Netta.
“Are you never quiet, I wonder? And why
did you let that horrid little beast come in here?
You know I detest him.”

“He isn’t horrid!” said Tessa, instantly
on the defensive. “And I couldn’t
help him coming in. I didn’t know you were
here, but it isn’t your bungalow anyway, and
Aunt Mary doesn’t mind him.”

“Oh, go away!” said Netta with irritation.
“You get more insufferable every day. Take
the little brute with you and shut him up—­or
drown him!”

Tessa came forward with an insolent shrug. There
was more than a spice of defiance in her bearing.

“I don’t suppose I can catch him,”
she said. “But I’ll try.”

The chase of the elusive Scooter that followed would
have been an affair of pure pleasure to the child,
had it not been for the presence of her mother and
the growing exasperation with which she regarded it.
It was all sheer fun to Scooter who wormed in and
out of the furniture with mirth in his gleaming eyes,
and darted past the window a dozen times without availing
himself of that means of escape.

Page 190

Netta’s small stock of patience was very speedily
exhausted. She sat up on the sofa and sternly
commanded Tessa to desist.

“Go and tell the khit to catch him!”
she said.

Tessa, however, by this time had also warmed to the
game. She paid no more attention to her mother’s
order than she would have paid to the buzzing of a
mosquito. And when Scooter dived under the sofa
on which Netta had been reclining, she burrowed after
him with a squeal of merriment.

It was too much for Netta whose feelings had been
decidedly ruffled before Tessa’s entrance.
As Scooter shot out on the other side of her, running
his queer zigzag course, she snatched the first thing
that came to hand, which chanced to be a heavy bronze
weight from the writing-table at her elbow, and hurled
it at him with all her strength.

Scooter collapsed on the floor like a broken mechanical
toy. Tessa uttered a wild scream and flung herself
upon him.

Netta gasped hysterically, horrified but still angry.
“It serves him right—­serves you both
right! Now go away!” she said.

Tessa turned on her knees on the floor. Scooter
was feebly kicking in her arms. The missile had
struck him on the head and one eye was terribly injured.
She gathered him up to her little narrow chest, and
he ceased to kick and became quite still.

Over his lifeless body she looked at her mother with
eyes of burning furious hatred. “You’ve
killed him!” she said, her voice sunk very low.
“And I hope—­oh, I do hope—­some
day—­someone—­will kill you!”

There was that about her at the moment that actually
frightened Netta, and it was with undoubted relief
that she saw the door open and Major Ralston’s
loose-knit lounging figure block the entrance.

“What’s all this noise about?” he
began, and stopped short.

Behind him stood another figure, broad, powerful,
not overtall. At sight of it, Tessa uttered a
hard sob and scrambled to her feet. She still
clasped poor Scooter’s dead body to her breast,
and his blood was on her face and on the white frock
she wore.

“Uncle St. Bernard! Look! Look!”
she said. “She’s killed my Scooter!”

Netta also arose at this juncture. “Oh,
do take that horrible thing away!” she said.
“If it’s dead, so much the better.
It was no more than a weasel after all. I hate
such pets.”

Major Ralston found himself abruptly though not roughly
pushed aside. Bernard Monck swooped down with
the action of a practised footballer and took the
furry thing out of Tessa’s hold. His eyes
were very bright and intensely alert, but he did not
seem aware of Tessa’s mother.

“Come with me, darling!” he said to the
child. “P’raps I can help.”

He trod upon the carved bronze that had slain Scooter
as he turned, and he left the mark of his heel upon
it—­the deep impress of an angry giant.

The door closed with decision upon himself and the
child, and Major Ralston was left alone with Netta.

Page 191

She looked at him with a flushed face ready to defy
remonstance, but he stooped without speaking and picked
up the thing that Bernard had tried to grind to powder,
surveyed it with a lifted brow and set it back in
its place.

Netta promptly collapsed upon the sofa. “Oh,
it is too bad!” she sobbed. “It really
is too bad! Now I suppose you too—­are
going to be brutal.”

Major Ralston cleared his throat. There was certainly
no sympathy in his aspect, but his manner was wholly
lacking in brutality. He was never brutal to
women, and Netta Ermsted was his guest as well as his
patient.

After a moment he sat down beside her, and there was
nothing in the action to mark it as heroic, or to
betray the fact that he yearned to stamp out of the
room after Bernard and leave her severely to her hysterics.

“No good in being upset now,” he remarked.
“The thing’s done, and crying won’t
undo it.”

“I don’t want to undo it!” declared
Netta. “I always did detest the horrible
ferrety thing. Tessa couldn’t have taken
it Home with her either, so it’s just as well
it’s gone.” She dried her eyes with
a vindictive gesture, and reached for the cigarettes.
Hysterics were impossible in this man’s presence.
He was like a shower of cold water.

“I shouldn’t if I were you,” remarked
Major Ralston with the air of a man performing a laborious
duty. “You smoke too many of ’em.”

Netta ignored the admonition. “They soothe
my nerves,” she said. “May I have
a light?”

He searched his pockets, and apparently drew a blank.

Netta frowned in swift irritation. “How
stupid! I thought all men carried matches.”

Major Ralston accepted the reproof in silence.
He was like a large dog, gravely presenting his shoulder
to the nips of a toy terrier.

“Well?” said Netta aggressively.

He looked at her with composure. “Talking
about going Home,” he said, “at the risk
of appearing inhospitable, I think it is my duty to
advise you very strongly to go as soon as possible.”

“Indeed!” She looked back with instant
hostility. “And why?”

He did not immediately reply. Whether with reason
or not, he had the reputation for being slow-witted,
in spite of the fact that he was a brilliant chess-player.

She laughed—­a short, unpleasant laugh.
She was never quite at her ease with him, notwithstanding
his slowness. “Why the devil should I, Major
Ralston?”

He shrugged his shoulders with massive deliberation.
“Because,” he said slowly, “there’s
going to be the devil’s own row if this man is
hanged for your husband’s murder. We have
been warned to that effect.”

She shrugged her shoulders also with infinite daintiness,
“Oh, a native rumpus! That doesn’t
impress me in the least. I shan’t go for
that.”

Major Ralston’s eyes wandered round the room
as if in search of inspiration. “Mary is
going,” he observed.

Page 192

Netta laughed again, lightly, flippantly. “Good
old Mary! Where is she going to?”

His eyes came down upon her suddenly like the flash
of a knife. “She has consented to go to
Bhulwana with the rest,” he said. “But
I beg you will not accompany her there. As Captain
Ermsted’s widow and—­” he spoke
as one hewing his way—­“the chosen
friend of the Rajah, your position in the State is
one of considerable difficulty—­possibly
even of danger. And I do not propose to allow
my wife to take unnecessary risks. For that reason
I must ask you to go before matters come to a head.
You have stayed too long already.”

“Good gracious!” said Netta, opening her
eyes wide. “But if Mary’s sacred
person is to be safely stowed at Bhulwana, what is
to prevent my remaining here if I so choose?”

“Because I don’t choose to let you, Mrs.
Ermsted,” said Major Ralston steadily.

She gazed at him. “You—­don’t—­choose!
You!”

His eyes did battle with hers. Since that slighting
allusion to his wife, he had no consideration left
for Netta. “That is so,” he said,
in his heavy fashion. “I have already pointed
out that you would be well-advised on your own account
to go—­not to mention the child’s
safety.”

“Oh, the child!” There was keenness about
the exclamation which almost amounted to actual dislike.
“I’m tired to death of having Tessa’s
welfare and Tessa’s morals rammed down my throat.
Why should I make a fetish of the child? What
is good enough for me is surely good enough for her.”

“I am afraid I don’t agree with you,”
said Major Ralston.

“You wouldn’t,” she rejoined.
“You and Mary are quite antediluvian in your
idea. But that doesn’t influence me.
I am glad to say I am more up to date. If I can’t
stay here, I shall go to Udalkhand. There’s
a hotel there as well as here.”

“Of sorts,” said Major Ralston. “Also
Udalkhand is nearer to the seat of disturbance.”

“Well, I don’t care.” Netta
spoke recklessly. “I’m not going to
be dictated to. What a mighty scare you’re
all in! What can you think will happen even if
a few natives do get out of hand?”

“Plenty of things might happen,” he rejoined,
getting up. “But that by the way.
If you won’t listen to reason I am wasting my
time. But—­” he spoke with abrupt
emphasis—­“you will not take Tessa
to Udalkhand.”

Netta’s eyes gleamed. “I shall take
her to Kamtchatka if I choose,” she said.

For the first time a smile crossed Major Ralston’s
face. He turned to the door. “And
if she chooses,” he said, with malicious satisfaction.

The door closed upon him, and Netta was left alone.

She remained motionless for a few moments showing
her teeth a little in an answering smile; then with
a swift, lissom movement, that would have made Tommy
compare her to a lizard, she rose.

With a white, determined face she bent over the writing-table
and scribbled a hasty note. Her hand shook, but
she controlled it resolutely.

Page 193

Words flicked rapidly into being under her pen:
“I shall be behind the tamarisks to-night.”

CHAPTER IV

THE BROAD ROAD

Bernard Monck never forgot the day of Scooter’s
death. It was as indelibly fixed in his memory
as in that of Tessa.

The child’s wild agony of grief was of so utterly
abandoned a nature as to be almost Oriental in its
violence. The passionate force of her resentment
against her mother also was not easy to cope with though
he quelled it eventually. But when that was over,
when she had wept herself exhausted in his arms at
last, there followed a period of numbness that made
him seriously uneasy.

Mrs. Ralston had gone out before the tragedy had occurred,
but Major Ralston presently came to his relief.
He stooped over Tessa with a few kindly words, but
when he saw the child’s face his own changed
somewhat.

“This won’t do,” he said to Bernard,
holding the slender wrist. “We must get
her to bed. Where’s her ayah?”

Tessa’s little hand hung limply in his hold.
She seemed to be half-asleep. Yet when Bernard
moved to lift her, she roused herself to cling around
his neck.

The ayah was nowhere to be found, but it was
doubtful if her presence would have made much difference,
since Tessa would not stir from her friend’s
sheltering arms, and wept again weakly even at the
doctor’s touch.

So it was Bernard who carried her to her room, and
eventually put her to bed under Major Ralston’s
directions. The latter’s face was very grave
over the whole proceeding and he presently fetched
something in a medicine-glass and gave it to Bernard
to administer.

Tessa tried to refuse it, but her opposition broke
down before Bernard’s very gentle insistence.
She would do anything, she told him piteously, if
only—­if only—­he would stay with
her.

So Bernard stayed, sending a message to The Green
Bungalow to explain his absence, which found Mrs.
Ralston as well as Stella and brought the former back
in haste.

Tessa was in a deep sleep by the time she arrived,
but, hearing that Stella did not need him, Bernard
still maintained his watch, only permitting Mrs. Ralston
to relieve him while he partook of luncheon with her
husband.

Netta did not appear for the meal to the unspoken
satisfaction of them both. They ate almost in
silence, Major Ralston being sunk in a species of
moody abstraction which Bernard did not disturb until
the meal was over.

Then at length, ere he rose to go, he deliberately
broke into his host’s gloomy reflections.
“Will you tell me,” he said courteously,
“exactly what it is that you fear with regard
to the child?”

Major Ralston continued to be abstracted for fully
thirty seconds after the quiet question; then, as
Bernard did not repeat it but merely waited, he replied
to it.

Page 194

“There are plenty of things to be feared for
a child like that. It’s a criminal shame
to have kept her out here so long. What I actually
believe to be the matter at the present moment, is
heart trouble.”

“Ah! I thought so.” Bernard
looked across at him with grave comprehension.
“She had a bad shock the other day.”

“Yes; a shock to the whole system. She
lives on wires in any case. I am going to examine
her presently, but I am pretty sure I am right.
What she really wants—­” Major Ralston
stopped himself abruptly, so abruptly that a twinkle
of humour shone momentarily in Bernard’s eyes.

“Don’t jam on the brakes on my account!”
he protested gently. “I am with you all
the way. What does she really want?”

Major Ralston uttered a gruff laugh. It was practically
impossible not to confide in Bernard Monck. “She
wants to get right away from that vicious little termagant
of a mother of hers. There’s no love between
them and never will be, so what’s the use of
pretending? She wants to get into a wholesome
bracing, outdoor atmosphere with someone who knows
how to love her. She’ll probably go straight
to the bad if she doesn’t—­that is,
if she lives long enough.”

The humour had died in Bernard’s eyes.
They shone with a very different light as he said,
“I have thought the same thing myself.”
He paused a moment, then slowly, “Do you think
her mother would be persuaded to hand her over to
me?” he said.

Ralston’s brows went up. “To you!
For good and all do you mean?”

“Yes.” In his steady unhurried fashion
Bernard made answer. “I have been thinking
of it for some time. As a matter of fact, it was
to consult you about it that I came here to-day.
I want it more than ever now.”

Bernard smiled. “I daresay. But, you
see, we’re chums. To use your own expression
I know how to love her. I could make her happy—­possibly
good as well.”

Ralston never paid compliments, but after a considerable
pause he said, “It would be the best thing that
ever happened to the imp. So far as her mother’s
permission goes, I should say she is cheap enough to
be had almost without asking. You won’t
need to use much persuasion in that direction.”

“An infernal shame!” said Bernard, the
hot light again in his eyes.

Ralston agreed with him. “All the same,
Tessa can be a positive little demon when she likes.
I’ve seen it, so I know. She has got a good
deal of her mother’s temperament only with a
generous allowance of heart thrown in.”

“Yes,” Bernard said. “And it’s
the heart that counts. You can do practically
anything with a child like that.”

Ralston got up. “Well, I’m going
to have another look at her, and then I’m due
at The Green Bungalow. I can’t say what
is going to happen there. You ought to clear
out, all of you; but a journey would probably be fatal
to Mrs. Monck’s infant just now. I can’t
advise it.”

Page 195

“Wherever Stella goes, I go,” said Bernard
firmly.

“Yes, that’s understood.” Ralston
gave him a keen look. “You’re in
charge, aren’t you? But those who can go,
must go, that’s certain. That scoundrel
will be convicted in a day or two. And then—­look
out for squalls!”

Bernard’s smile was scarcely the smile of the
man of peace. “Oh yes, I shall look out,”
he said mildly. “And—­incidentally—­Tommy
is teaching me how to shoot.”

They returned to Tessa who was still sleeping, and
Mrs. Ralston gave up her place beside her to Bernard,
who settled down with a paper to spend the afternoon.
Major Ralston departed for The Green Bungalow, and
the silence of midday fell upon the place.

It was still early in the year, but the warmth was
as that of a soft summer day in England. The
lazy drone of bees hung on the air, and somewhere
among the tamarisks a small, persistent bird, called
and called perpetually, receiving no reply.

“A fine example of perseverance,” Bernard
murmured to himself.

He had plenty of things to think about—­to
worry about also, had it been his disposition to worry;
but the utter peace that surrounded him made him drowsy.
He nodded uncomfortably for a space, then finally—­since
he seldom did things by halves—­laid aside
his paper, leaned back in his chair, and serenely
slept.

Twice during the afternoon Mrs. Ralston tiptoed along
the verandah, peeped in upon them, and retired again
smiling. On the second occasion she met her husband
on the same errand and he drew her aside, his hand
through her arm.

“Look here, Mary! I’ve talked to
that little spitfire without much result. She
talks in a random fashion of going to Udalkhand.
What her actual intentions are I don’t know.
Possibly she doesn’t know herself. But
one thing is certain. She is not going to be attached
to your train any longer, and I have told her so.”

“Oh, Gerald!” She looked at him in dismay.
“How—­inhospitable of you!”

“Yes, isn’t it?” His hand was holding
her arm firmly. “You see, I chance to value
your safety more than my reputation for kindness to
outsiders. You are going to Bhulwana at the end
of this week. Come! You promised.”

“Yes, I know I did.” She looked at
him with distress in her eyes. “I’ve
wished I hadn’t ever since. There is my
poor Stella in bad trouble for one thing. She
says she will have to change her ayah.
And there is—­”

“She has got Peter—­and her brother-in-law.
She doesn’t want you too,” said her husband.

“And now there is little Tessa,” proceeded
Mrs. Ralston, growing more and more worried as she
proceeded.

“Yes, there is Tessa,” he agreed.
“You can offer to take her to Bhulwana with
you if you like. But not her mother as well.
That is understood. It won’t break her
heart to part with her, I fancy. As for you, my
dear,” he gave her a whimsical look, “the
sooner you are gone the better I shall be pleased.
Lady Harriet and the Burton contingent left to-day.”

Page 196

“I hate going!” declared Mrs. Ralston
almost tearfully. “I shouldn’t have
promised if I could have foreseen all that was going
to happen.”

He squeezed her arm. “All the same—­you
promised. So don’t be silly!”

She turned suddenly and clung to him.

“Gerald! I want to stay with you.
Let me stay! I can’t bear the thought of
you alone and in danger.”

He stared for a moment in astonishment. Demonstrations
of affection were almost unknown between them.
Then, with a shamefaced gesture, he bent and kissed
her.

“What a silly old woman!” he said.

That ended the discussion and she knew that her plea
had been refused. But the fashion of its refusal
brought the warm colour to her faded face, and she
was even near to laughing in the midst of her woe.
How dear of Gerald to put it like that! She did
not feel that she had ever fully realized his love
for her until that moment.

Seeing that her presence in her own bungalow was not
needed just then, she betook herself once more to
Stella, and again the afternoon silence fell like
a spell of enchantment. That there could be any
element of unrest anywhere within that charmed region
seemed a thing impossible. The peace of Eden
brooded everywhere.

The evening was drawing on ere Bernard slowly emerged
from his serene slumber and looked at the child beside
him. Some invisible influence—­or perhaps
some bond of sympathy between them—­had awakened
her at the same moment, for her eyes were fixed upon
him. They shone intensely, mysteriously blue
in the subdued light, wistful, searching eyes, wholly
unlike the eyes of a child.

Her hand came out to his. “Have you been
here all the time, dear?” she said.

She seemed to be still half-wrapped in the veil of
sleep. He leaned to her, holding the little hand
up against his cheek.

“Almost, my princess,” he said.

She nestled to him snuggling her fair head into his
shoulder. “I’ve been dreaming,”
she whispered.

“Have you, my darling?” He gathered her
close with a compassionate tenderness for the frailty
of the little throbbing body he held.

Tessa’s arms crept round his neck. “I
dreamt,” she said, “that you and I, Uncle
St. Bernard, were walking in a great big city, and
there was a church with a golden spire. There
were a lot of steps up to it—­and Scooter—­”
a sob rose in her throat and was swiftly suppressed—­“was
sunning himself on the top. And I tried to run
up the steps and catch him, but there were always
more and more and more steps, and I couldn’t
get any nearer. And I cried at last, I was so
tired and disappointed. And then—­”
the bony arms tightened—­“you came
up behind me, and took my hand and said, ’Why
don’t you kneel down and pray? It’s
much the quickest way.’ And so I did,”
said Tessa simply. “And all of a sudden
the steps were gone, and you and I went in together.
I tried to pick up Scooter, but he ran away, and I
didn’t mind ’cos I knew he was safe.
I was so happy, so very happy. I didn’t
want to wake again.” A doleful note crept
into Tessa’s voice; she swallowed another sob.

Page 197

Bernard lifted her bodily from the bed to his arms.
“Don’t fret, little sweetheart! I’m
here,” he said.

She lifted her face to his, very wet and piteous.
“Uncle St. Bernard, I’ve been praying
and praying—­ever such a lot since my birthday-party.
You said I might, didn’t you? But God hasn’t
taken any notice.”

He held her close. “What have you been
praying for, my darling?” he said.

“I do—­so—­want to be your
little girl,” answered Tessa with a break in
her voice. “I never really prayed for anything
before—­only the things Aunt Mary made me
say—­and they weren’t what I wanted.
But I do want this. And I believe I’d get
quite good if I was your little girl. I told
God so, but I don’t think He cared.”

“Yes. He did care, darling.”
Very softly Bernard reassured her. “Don’t
you think that ever! He is going to answer that
prayer of yours—­pretty soon now.”

“Oh, is He?” said Tessa, brightening.
“How do you know? Is He going to say Yes?”

“I think so.” Bernard’s voice
and touch were alike motherly. “But you
must be patient a little longer, my princess of the
bluebell. It isn’t good for us to have
things straight off when we want them.”

“You do want me?” insinuated Tessa, squeezing
his neck very hard.

“Yes. I want you very much,” he said.

“I love you,” said Tessa with passionate
warmth, “better—­yes, better now than
even Uncle Everard. And I didn’t think I
ever could do that.”

“God bless you, little one!” he said.

Later, when Major Ralston had seen her again, they
had another conference. The doctor’s suspicions
were fully justified. Tessa would need the utmost
care.

“Quite so,” Ralston agreed. “My
wife shall look after the child at Bhulwana.
It will keep her quiet.” He gave Bernard
a shrewd look. “Perhaps you—­and
Mrs. Monck also—­will be on your way Home
before the hot weather,” he said. “In
that case she could go with you.”

Bernard was silent. It was impossible to look
forward. One thing was certain. He could
not desert Stella.

Ralston passed on. Being reticent himself he
respected a man who could keep his own counsel.

“What about Mrs. Ermsted?” he said.
“When will you see her?”

“To-night,” said Bernard, setting his
jaw.

Ralston smiled briefly. That look recalled his
brother. “No time like the present,”
he said.

But the time for consultation with Netta Ermsted upon
the future of her child was already past. When
Bernard, very firm and purposeful, walked down again
after dinner that night, Ralston met him with a wry
expression and put a crumpled note into his hand.

Page 198

DEAR MARY:

This is to wish you and all kind friends good-bye.
So that there may be no misunderstanding on the part
of our charitable gossips, pray tell them at once
that I have finally chosen the broad road as it really
suits me best. As for Tessa—­I bequeath
her and her little morals to the first busybody who
cares to apply for them. Perhaps the worthy Father
Monck would like to acquire virtue in this fashion.
I find the task only breeds vice in me. Many
thanks for your laborious and, I fear, wholly futile
attempts to keep me in the much too narrow way.

Yours,

NETTA.

Bernard looked up from the note with such fiery eyes
that Ralston who was on the verge of a scathing remark
himself had to stop out of sheer curiosity to see
what he would say.

“A damnably cruel and heartless woman!”
said Bernard with deliberation.

Ralston’s smile expressed what for him was warm
approval. “She’s nothing but an animal,”
he said.

Bernard took him up short. “You wrong the
animals,” he said. “The very least
of them love their young.”

Ralston shrugged his shoulders. “All the
better for Tessa anyhow.”

Bernard’s eyes softened very suddenly.
He crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it from
him. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“God helping me, it shall be all the better
for her.”

CHAPTER V

THE DARK NIGHT

An owl hooted across the compound, and a paraquet
disturbed by the outcry uttered a shrill, indignant
protest. An immense moon hung suspended as it
were in mid-heaven, making all things intense with
its radiance. It was the hour before the dawn.

Stella stood at her window, gazing forth and numbly
marvelling at the splendour. As of old, it struck
her like a weird fantasy—­this Indian enchantment—­poignant,
passionate, holding more of anguish than of ecstasy,
yet deeply magnetic, deeply alluring, as a magic potion
which, once tasted, must enchain the senses for ever.

The extravagance of that world of dreadful black and
dazzling silver, the stillness that was yet indescribably
electric, the unreality that was allegorically real,
she felt it all as a vague accompaniment to the heartache
that never left her—­the scornful mockery
of the goddess she had refused to worship.

There were even times when the very atmosphere seemed
to her charged with hostility—­a terrible
overwhelming antagonism that closed about her in a
narrowing ring which serpent-wise constricted her ever
more and more, from which she could never hope to
escape. For—­still the old idea haunted
her—­she was a trespasser upon forbidden
ground. Once she had been cast forth. But
she had dared to return, braving the flaming sword.
And now—­and now—­it barred her
in, cutting off her escape.

For she was as much a prisoner as if iron walls surrounded
her. Sentence had gone forth against her.
She would not be cast forth again until she had paid
the uttermost farthing, endured the ultimate torture.
Then only—­childless and desolate and broken—­would
she be turned adrift in the desert, to return no more
for ever.

Page 199

The ghastly glamour of the night attracted and repelled
her like the swing of a mighty pendulum. She
was trying to pray—­that much had Bernard
taught her—­but her prayer only ran blind
and futile through her brain. The hour should
have been sacred, but it was marred and desecrated
by the stark glare of that nightmare moon. She
was worn out with long and anxious watching, and she
had almost ceased to look for comfort, so heavy were
the clouds that menaced her.

The thought of Everard was ever with her, strive as
she might to drive it out. At such moments as
these she yearned for him with a sick and desperate
longing—­his strength, his tenderness, his
understanding. He, and he alone, would have known
how to comfort her now with her baby dying before
her eyes. He would have held her up through her
darkest hours. His arm would have borne her forward
however terrible the path.

She had Bernard and she had Tommy, each keen and ready
in her service. She sometimes thought that but
for Bernard she would have been overwhelmed long since.
But he could not fill the void within her. He
could not even touch the aching longing that gnawed
so perpetually at her heart. That was a pain
she would have to endure in silence all the rest of
her life. She did not think she would ever see
Everard again. Though only a few miles lay between
them at present he might have been already a world
away. She was sure he would not come back to her
unless she summoned him. The manner of his going,
though he had taken no leave of her, had been somehow
final. And she could not call him back even if
she would. He had deceived her cruelly, of set
intention, and she could never trust him again.
The memory of Ralph Dacre tainted all her thoughts
of him. He had sworn he had not killed him.
Perhaps not—­perhaps not! Yet was the
conviction ever with her that he had sent him to his
death, had intended him to die.

She had given up reasoning the matter. It was
beyond her. She was too hopelessly plunged in
darkness. Tommy with all his staunchness could
not lift that overwhelming cloud. And Bernard?
She did not know what Bernard thought save that he
had once reminded her that a man should be regarded
as innocent unless he could be proved guilty.

It was common talk now that Everard’s Indian
career was ended. It was only the trial at Khanmulla
that had delayed the sending in of his papers.
He was as much a broken man, however hotly Tommy contested
the point, as if he had been condemned by a court-martial.
Surely, had he been truly innocent he would have demanded
a court-martial and vindicated himself. But he
had suffered his honour to go down in silence.
What more damning evidence could be supplied than this?

Page 200

The dumb sympathy of Peter’s eyes kept the torturing
thought constantly before her. She felt sure
that Peter believed him guilty of Dacre’s murder
though it was more than possible that in his heart
he condoned the offence. Perhaps he even admired
him for it, she reflected shudderingly. But his
devotion to her, as always, was uppermost. His
dog-like fidelity surrounded her with unfailing service.
The ayah had gone, and he had slipped into
her place as naturally as if he had always occupied
it. Even now, while Stella stood at her window
gazing forth into the garish moonlight, was he softly
padding to and fro in the room adjoining hers, hushing
the poor little wailing infant to sleep. She
could trust him implicitly, she knew, even in moments
of crisis. He would gladly work himself to death
in her service. But with Mrs. Ralston gone to
Bhulwana, she knew she must have further help.
The strain was incessant, and Major Ralston insisted
that she must have a woman with her.

All the ladies of the station, save herself, had gone.
She knew vaguely that some sort of disturbance was
expected at Khanmulla, and that it might spread to
Kurrumpore. But her baby was too ill for travel;
she had practically forced this truth from Major Ralston,
and so she had no choice but to remain. She knew
very well at the heart of her that it would not be
for long.

No thought of personal danger troubled her. Sinister
though the night might seem to her stretched nerves,
yet no sense of individual peril penetrated the weary
bewilderment of her brain. She was tired out in
mind and body, and had yielded to Peter’s persuasion
to take a rest. But the weird cry of the night-bird
had drawn her to the window and the glittering splendour
of the night had held her there. She turned from
it at last with a long, long sigh, and lay down just
as she was. She always held herself ready for
a call at any time. Those strange seizures came
so suddenly and were becoming increasingly violent.
It was many days since she had permitted herself to
sleep soundly.

She lay for awhile wide-eyed, almost painfully conscious,
listening to Peter’s muffled movements in the
other room. The baby had ceased to cry, but he
was still prowling to and fro, tireless and patient,
with an endurance that was almost superhuman.

She had done the same thing a little earlier till
her limbs had given way beneath her. In the daytime
Bernard helped her, but she and Peter shared the nights.

Her senses became at last a little blurred. The
night seemed to have spread over half a lifetime—­a
practically endless vista of suffering. The soft
footfall in the other room made her think of the Sentry
at the Gate, that Sentry with the flaming sword who
never slept. It beat with a pitiless thudding
upon her brain....

Later, it grew intermittent, fitful, as if at each
turn the Sentry paused. It always went on again,
or so she thought. And she was sure she was not
deeply sleeping, or that haunting cry of an owl had
not penetrated her consciousness so frequently.

Page 201

Once, oddly, there came to her—­perhaps
it was a dream—­a sound as of voices whispering
together. She turned in her sleep and tried to
listen, but her senses were fogged, benumbed.
She could not at the moment drag herself free from
the stupor of weariness that held her. But she
was sure of Peter, quite sure that he would call her
if any emergency arose. And there was no one
with whom he could be whispering. So she was sure
it must be a dream. Imperceptibly she sank still
deeper into slumber and forgot....

It was several hours later that Tommy, returned from
early parade, flung himself impetuously down at the
table opposite Bernard with a brief, “Now for
it!”

Bernard was reading a letter, and Tommy’s eyes
fastened upon it as his were lifted.

“What’s that? A letter from Everard?”
he asked unceremoniously.

“Yes. He has written to tell me definitely
that he has sent in his resignation—­and
it has been accepted.” Bernard’s reply
was wholly courteous, the boy’s bluntness notwithstanding.
He had a respect for Tommy.

“Oh, damn!” said Tommy with fervor.
“What is he going to do now?”

“He doesn’t tell me that.”
Bernard folded the letter and put it in his pocket.
“What’s your news?” he inquired.

Tommy marked the action with somewhat jealous eyes.
He had been aware of Everard’s intention for
some time. It had been more or less inevitable.
But he wished he had written to him also. There
were several things he would have liked to know.

He looked at Bernard rather blankly, ignoring his
question. “What the devil is he going to
do?” he said. “Dropout?”

Bernard’s candid eyes met his. “Honestly
I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps
he is just waiting for orders.”

“Oh, it’s nothing!” said Tommy impatiently.
“Nothing, I mean, compared to his clearing out.
The trial is over and the man is condemned. He
is to be executed next week. It’ll mean
a shine of some sort—­nothing very great,
I am afraid.”

“That all?” said Bernard, with a smile.

“No, not quite all. There was some secret
information given which it is supposed was rather
damaging to the Rajah, for he has taken to his heels.
No one knows where he is, or at least no one admits
he does. You know these Oriental chaps.
They can cover the scent of a rotten herring.
He’ll probably never turn up again. The
place is too hot to hold him. He can finish his
rotting in another corner of the Empire; and I wish
Netta Ermsted joy of her bargain!” ended Tommy
with vindictive triumph.

“My good fellow!” protested Bernard.

Tommy uttered a reckless laugh. “You know
it as well as I do. She was done for from the
moment he taught her the opium habit. There’s
no escape from that, and the devil knew it. I
say, what a mercy it will be when you can get Tessa
away to England.”

Page 202

“And Stella too,” said Bernard, turning
to the subject with relief.

“You won’t do that,” said Tommy
quickly.

“How do you know that?” Bernard’s
look had something of a piercing quality.

But Tommy eluded all search. “I do know.
I can’t tell you how. But I’m certain—­dead
certain—­that Stella won’t go back
to England with you this spring.”

“You’re something of a prophet, Tommy,”
remarked Bernard, after an attentive pause.

He went to meet her and drew her to the table.
She smiled in her wan, rather abstracted way at Bernard
whom she had seen before.

“Oh, don’t get up!” she said.
“I only came for a glimpse of you both.
I had tiffin in my room. Peter saw to
that. Baby is very weak this morning, and I thought
perhaps, Tommy dear, when, you go back you would see
Major Ralston for me and ask him to come up soon.”
She sat down with an involuntary gesture of weariness.

“Have you slept at all?” Bernard asked
her gently.

“Oh yes, thank you. I had three hours of
undisturbed rest. Peter was splendid.”

“You must have another ayah,” Bernard
said. “It isn’t fit for you to go
on in this way.”

“No.” She spoke with the docility
of exhaustion. “Peter is seeing to it.
He always sees to everything. He knows a woman
in the bazaar who would do—­an elderly woman—­I
think he said she is the grandmother of Hafiz who
sells trinkets. You know Hafiz, I expect?
I don’t like him, but he is supposed to be respectable,
and Peter is prepared to vouch for the woman’s
respectability. Only she has been terribly disfigured
by an accident, burnt I think he said, and she wears
a veil. I told him that didn’t matter.
Baby is too ill to notice, and he evidently wants me
to have her. He says she has been used to English
children, and is a good nurse. That is what matters
chiefly, so I have told him to engage her.”

“I am very glad to hear it,” Bernard said.

“Yes, I think it will be a relief. Those
screaming fits are so terrible.” Stella
checked a sharp shudder. “Peter would not
recommend her if he did not personally know her to
be trustworthy,” she added quietly.

“No. Peter’s safe enough,”
said Tommy. He was bolting his meal with great
expedition. “Is the kiddie worse, Stella?”

She looked at him with that in her tired eyes that
went straight to his heart. “He is a little
worse every day,” she said.

Tommy swore into his cup and asked no further.

A few moments later he got up, gave her a brief kiss,
and departed.

Stella sat on with her chin in her hand, every line
of her expressing the weariness of the hopeless watcher.
She looked crushed, as if a burden she could hardly
support had been laid upon her.

Page 203

Bernard looked at her once or twice without speaking.
Finally he too rose, went round to her, knelt beside
her, put his arm about her.

Her face quivered a little. “I’ve
got—­to keep strong,” she said, in
the tone of one who had often said the same thing
in solitude.

“I know,” he said. “And so
you will. There’s special strength given
for such times as these. It won’t fail
you now.”

She put her hand into his. “Thank you,”
she said. And then, with an effort, “Do
you know, Bernard, I tried—­I really tried—­to
pray in the night before I lay down. But—­there
was something so wicked about it—­I simply
couldn’t.”

“One can’t always,” he said.

“Oh, have you found that too?” she asked.

He smiled at the question. “Of course I
have. So has everybody. We’re only
children, Stella. God knows that. He doesn’t
expect of us more than we can manage. Prayer
is only one of the means we have of reaching Him.
It can’t be used always. There are some
people who haven’t time for prayer even, and
yet they may be very near to God. In times of
stress like yours one is often much nearer than one
realizes. You will find that out quite suddenly
one of these days, find that through all your desert
journeying, He has been guiding you, protecting you,
surrounding you with the most loving care. And—­because
the night was dark—­you never knew it.”

“The night is certainly very dark,” Stella
said with a tremulous smile. “If it weren’t
for you I don’t think I could ever get through.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” he said.
“If it weren’t me it would be someone
else—­or possibly a closer vision of Himself.
There is always something—­something to
which later you will look back and say, ’That
was His lamp in the desert, showing the way.’
Don’t fret if you can’t pray! I can
pray for you. You just keep on being brave and
patient! He understands.”

Stella’s fingers pressed upon his. “You
are good to me, Bernard,” she said. “I
shall think of what you say—­the next time
I am alone in the night.”

His arm held her sustainingly. “And if
you’re very desolate, child, come and call me!”
he said. “I’m always at hand, always
glad to serve you.”

She smiled—­a difficult smile. “I
shall need you more—­afterwards,” she
said under her breath. And then, as if words had
suddenly become impossible to her, she leaned against
him and kissed him.

He gathered her up close, as if she had been a weary
child. “God bless you, my dear!”
he said.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIRST GLIMMER

It was from the Colonel himself that Stella heard
of Everard’s retirement.

He walked back from the Mess that night with Tommy
and asked to see her for a few minutes alone.
He was always kinder to her in his wife’s absence.

Page 204

She was busy installing the new ayah whom Peter
with the air of a magician who has but to wave his
wand had presented to her half an hour before.
The woman was old and bent and closely veiled—­so
closely that Stella strongly suspected her disfigurement
to be of a very ghastly nature, but her low voice
and capable manner inspired her with instinctive confidence.
She realized with relief from the very outset that
her faithful Peter had not made a mistake. She
was sure that the new-comer had nursed sickly English
children before. She went to the Colonel, leaving
the strange woman in charge of her baby and Peter
hovering reassuringly in the background.

His first greeting of her had a touch of diffidence,
but when he saw the weary suffering of her eyes this
was swallowed up in pity. He took her hands and
held them.

“My poor girl!” he said.

She smiled at him. Pity from an outsider did
not penetrate to the depths of her. “Thank
you for coming,” she said.

He coughed and cleared his throat. “I hope
it isn’t an intrusion,” he said.

“But of course not!” she made answer.
“How could it be? Won’t you sit down?”

He led her to a chair; but he did not sit down himself.
He stood before her with something of the air of a
man making a confession.

“Mrs. Monck,” he said, “I think
I ought to tell you that it was by my advice that
your husband resigned his commission.”

Her brows drew together a little as if at a momentary
dart of pain. “Has he resigned it?”
she said.

“Yes. Didn’t he tell you?”
He frowned. “Haven’t you seen him?
Don’t you know where he is?”

She shook her head. “I can only think of
my baby just now,” she said.

He swung round abruptly upon his heel and paced the
room. “Oh yes, of course. I know that.
Ralston told me. I am very sorry for you, Mrs.
Monck,—­very, very sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He continued to tramp to and fro. “You
haven’t much to thank me for. I had to
think of the Regiment; but I considered the step very
carefully before I took it. He had rendered invaluable
service—­especially over this Khanmulla
trial. He would have been decorated for it if—­”
he pulled up with a jerk—­“if things
had been different. I know Sir Reginald Bassett
thought very highly of him, was prepared to give him
an appointment on his personal staff. And no
doubt eventually he would have climbed to the top
of the tree. But—­this affair has destroyed
him.” He paused a moment, but he did not
look at her. “He has had every chance,”
he said then. “I kept an open mind.
I wouldn’t condemn him unheard until—­well
until he refused flatly to speak on his own behalf.
I went over to Khanmulla and talked to him—­talked
half the night. I couldn’t move him.
And if a man won’t take the trouble to defend
his own honour, it isn’t worth—­that!”
He snapped his fingers with a bitter gesture; then

Page 205

abruptly wheeled and came back to her. “I
didn’t come here to distress you,” he
said, looking down at her again. “I know
your cup is full already. And it’s a thankless
task to persuade any woman that her husband is unworthy
of her, besides being an impertinence. But what
I must say to you is this. There is nothing left
to wait for, and it would be sheer madness to stay
on any longer. The Rajah has been deeply incriminated
and is in hiding. The Government will of course
take over the direction of affairs, but there is certain—­absolutely
certain—­to be a disturbance when Ermsted’s
murderer is executed. I hope an adequate force
will soon be at our disposal to cope with it, but it
has not yet been provided. Therefore I cannot
possibly permit you to stay here any longer.
As Monck’s wife, it is more than likely that
you might be made an object of vengeance. I can’t
risk it. You and the child must go. I will
send an escort in the morning.”

He stopped at last, partly for lack of breath, partly
because from her unmoved expression he fancied that
she was not taking in his warning words. She
sat looking straight before her as one rapt in reverie.
It was almost as though she had forgotten him, suffered
some more absorbing matter to crowd him out of her
thoughts.

“You do follow me?” he questioned at length
as she did not speak.

She lifted her eyes to him again though he felt it
was with a great effort. “Oh, yes,”
she said. “I quite understand you, Colonel
Mansfield. And—­I am quite grateful
to you. But I am not staying here for my husband’s
sake at all. I—­do not suppose we shall
ever see each other any more. All that is over.”

He started. “What! You have given
him up?” he said, uttering the words almost
involuntarily, so quiet was she in her despair.

She bent her head. “Yes, I have given him
up. I do not know where he is—­or anything
about him. I am staying here now—­I
must stay here now—­for my baby’s
sake. He is too ill to bear a journey.”

She lifted her face again with the words, and in its
pale resolution he saw that he would spend himself
upon further argument in vain. Moreover, he was
for the moment too staggered by the low-spoken information
to concentrate his attention upon persuasion.
Her utter quietness silenced him.

He stood for a moment or two looking down at her,
then abruptly bent and took her hand. “You’re
a very brave woman,” he said, a quick touch of
feeling in his voice. “You’ve had
a fiendish time of it out here from start to finish.
It’ll be a good thing for you when you can get
out of it and go Home. You’re young; you’ll
start again.”

It was clumsy consolation, but his hand-grip was fatherly.
She smiled again at him, and got up.

“Thank you very much, Colonel. You have
always been kind. Please don’t bother about
me any more. I am really not a bit afraid.
I have too much to think about. And really I
don’t think I am important enough to be in any
real danger. You will excuse me now, won’t
you? I have just got a new ayah, and they
always need superintending. Perhaps you will join
my brother-in-law. I know he will be delighted.”

Page 206

She extricated herself with a gentle aloofness more
difficult to combat than any open opposition, and
he went away to express himself more strongly to Bernard
Monck from whom he was sure at least of receiving
sympathy if not support.

Stella returned to her baby with a stunned feeling
of having been struck, and yet without consciousness
of pain. Perhaps she had suffered so much that
her faculties were getting numbed. She knew that
the Colonel was surprised that his news concerning
Everard had affected her so little. She was in
a fashion surprised herself. Was she then so
absorbed that she had no room for him in her thoughts?
And yet only the previous night how she had yearned
for him!

It was the end of everything for him—­the
end of his ambition, of his career, of all his cherished
hopes. He was a broken man and he would drop
out as other men had dropped out. His love for
her had been his ruin. And yet her brain seemed
incapable of grasping the meaning of the catastrophe.
The bearing of her burden occupied the whole of her
strength.

The rest of the Colonel’s news scarcely touched
her at all, save that the thought flashed upon her
once that if the danger were indeed so great Everard
would certainly come to her. That sent a strange
glow through her that died as swiftly as it was born.
She did not really believe in the danger, and Everard
was probably far away already.

She went back to her baby and the ayah, Hanani,
over whom Peter was mounting guard with a queer mixture
of patronage and respect. For though he had procured
the woman and obviously thought highly of her, he
seemed to think that none but himself could be regarded
as fully qualified to have the care of his mem-sahib’s
fondly cherished baba.

Stella heard him giving some low-toned directions
as she entered, and she wondered if the new ayah
would resent his lordly attitude. But the veiled
head bent over the child expressed nothing but complete
docility. She answered Peter in few words, but
with the utmost meekness.

Her quietness was a great relief to Stella. There
was a self-reliance about it that gave her confidence.
And presently, tenderly urged by Peter, she went to
the adjoining room to rest, on the understanding that
she should be called immediately if occasion arose.
And that was the first night of many that she passed
in undisturbed repose.

In the early morning, entering, she found Peter in
sole possession and very triumphant. They had
divided the night, he said, and Hanani had gone to
rest in her turn. All had gone well. He had
slept on the threshold and knew. And now his
mem-sahib would sleep through every night and
have no fear.

Page 207

She smiled at his solicitude though it touched her
almost to tears, and gathered in silence to her breast
the little frail body that every day now seemed to
feel lighter and smaller. It would not be for
very long—­their planning and contriving.
Very soon now she would be free—­quite free—­to
sleep as long as she would. But her tired heart
warmed to Peter and to that silent ayah whom
he had enlisted in her service. Through the dark
night of her grief the love of her friends shone with
a radiance that penetrated even the deepest shadows.
Was this the lamp in the desert of which Bernard had
spoken so confidently—­the Lamp that God
had lighted to guide her halting feet? Was it
by this that she would come at last into the Presence
of God Himself, and realize that the wanderers in
the wilderness are ever His especial care?

Certainly, as Peter had intimated, she knew her baby
to be safe in their joint charge. As the days
slipped by, it seemed to her that Peter had imbued
the ayah with something of his own devotion,
for, though it was proffered almost silently, she
was aware of it at every turn. At any other time
her sympathy for the woman would have fired her interest
and led her to attempt to draw her confidence.
But the slender thread of life they guarded, though
it bound them with a tie that was almost friendship,
seemed so to fill their minds that they never spoke
of anything else. Stella knew that Hanani loved
her and considered her in every way, but she gave
Peter most of the credit for it, Peter and the little
dying baby she rocked so constantly against her heart.
She knew that many an ayah would lay down her
life for her charge. Peter had chosen well.

Later—­when this time of waiting and watching
was over, when she was left childless and alone—­she
would try to find out something of the woman’s
history, help her if she could, reward her certainly.
It was evident that she was growing old. She
had the stoop and the deliberation of age. Probably,
she would not have obtained an ayah’s
post under any other circumstances. But, notwithstanding
these drawbacks, she had a wonderful endurance, and
she was never startled or at a loss. Stella often
told herself that she would not have exchanged her
for another woman—­even a white woman—­out
of the whole of India had the chance offered.
Hanani, grave, silent, capable, met every need.

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST VICTIM

An ominous calm prevailed at Khanmulla during the
week that followed the conviction of Ermsted’s
murderer and the disappearance of the Rajah. All
Markestan seemed to be waiting with bated breath.
But, save for the departure of the women from Kurrumpore,
no sign was given by the Government of any expectation
of a disturbance. The law was to take its course,
and no official note had been made of the absence of
the Rajah. He had always been sudden in his movements.

Page 208

Everything went as usual at Kurrumpore, and no one’s
nerves seemed to feel any strain. Even Tommy
betrayed no hint of irritation. A new manliness
had come upon Tommy of late. He was keeping himself
in hand with a steadiness which even Bertie Oakes
could not ruffle and which Major Ralston openly approved.
He had always known that Tommy had the stuff for great
things in him.

A species of bickering friendship had sprung up between
them, founded upon their tacit belief in the honour
of a man who had failed. They seldom mentioned
his name, but the bond of sympathy remained, oddly
tenacious and unassailable. Tommy strongly suspected,
moreover, that Ralston knew Everard’s whereabouts,
and of this even Bernard was ignorant at that time.
Ralston never boasted his knowledge, but the conviction
had somehow taken hold of Tommy, and for this reason
also he sought the surgeon’s company as he had
certainly never sought it before.

Ralston on his part was kind to the boy partly because
he liked him and admired his staunchness, and partly
because his wife’s unwilling departure had left
him lonely. He and Major Burton for some reason
were not so friendly as of yore, and they no longer
spent their evenings in strict seclusion with the
chess-board. He took to walking back from the
Mess with Tommy, and encouraged the latter to drop
in at his bungalow for a smoke whenever he felt inclined.
It was but a short distance from The Green Bungalow,
and, as he was wont to remark, it was one degree more
cheerful for which consideration Tommy was profoundly
grateful. Notwithstanding Bernard’s kind
and wholesome presence, there were times when the
atmosphere of The Green Bungalow was almost more than
he could bear. He was powerless to help, and
the long drawn-out misery weighed upon him unendurably.
He infinitely preferred smoking a silent pipe in Ralston’s
company or messing about with him in his little surgery
as he was sometimes permitted to do.

On the evening before the day fixed for the execution
at Khanmulla, they were engaged in this fashion when
the khitmutgar entered with the news that a
sahib desired to speak to him.

“Oh, bother!” said Ralston crossly.
“Who is it? Don’t you know?”

The man hesitated, and it occurred to Tommy instantly
that there was a hint of mystery in his manner.
The sahib had ridden through the jungle from
Khanmulla, he said. He gave no name.

“Confounded fool!” said Ralston.
“No one but a born lunatic would do a thing
like that. Go and see what he wants like a good
chap, Tommy! I’m busy.”

Tommy rose with alacrity. His curiosity was aroused.
“Perhaps it’s Monck,” he said.

“More likely Barnes,” said Ralston.
“Only I shouldn’t have thought he’d
be such a fool. Keep your eyes skinned!”
he added, as Tommy went to the door. “Don’t
get shot or stuck by anybody! If I’m really
wanted, I’ll come.”

Tommy grinned at the caution and departed. He
had ceased to anticipate any serious trouble in the
State, and nothing really exciting ever came his way.

Page 209

He went through the bungalow to the dining-room still
half expecting to find his brother-in-law awaiting
him. But the moment he entered, he had a shock.
A man in a rough tweed coat was sitting at the table
in an odd, hunched attitude, almost as if he had fallen
into the chair that supported him.

He turned his head a little at Tommy’s entrance,
but not so that the light revealed his face.
“Hullo!” he said. “That you,
Ralston? I’ve got a bullet in my left shoulder.
Do you mind getting it out?”

Tommy stopped dead. He felt as if his heart stopped
also. He knew—­surely he knew—­that
voice! But it was not that of Everard or Barnes,
or of any one he had ever expected to meet again on
earth.

“What—­what—­” he
gasped feebly, and went backwards against the door-post.
“Am I drunk?” he questioned with himself.

The man in the chair turned more fully. “Why,
it’s Tommy!” he said.

The light smote full upon him now throwing up every
detail of a countenance which, though handsome, had
begun to show unmistakable signs of coarse and intemperate
habits. He laughed as he met the boy’s shocked
eyes, but the laugh caught in his throat and turned
to a strangled oath. Then he began to cough.

“Oh—­my God!” said Tommy.

He turned then, horror urging him, and tore back to
Ralston, as one pursued by devils. He burst in
upon him headlong.

Ralston came with a velocity which exceeded even Tommy’s
wild rush. Tommy marvelled at it later.
He had not thought the phlegmatic and slow-moving
Ralston had it in him. He himself was left well
behind, and when he re-entered the dining-room Ralston
was already bending over the huddled figure that sprawled
across the table.

“Come and lend a hand!” he ordered.
“We must get him on the floor. Poor devil!
He’s got it pretty straight.”

He had not seen the stricken man’s face.
He was too concerned with the wound to worry about
any minor details for the moment.

Tommy helped him to the best of his ability, but he
was trembling so much that in a second Ralston swooped
scathingly upon his weakness.

“Steady man! Pull yourself together!
What on earth’s the matter? Never seen
a little blood before? If you faint, I’ll—­I’ll
kick you! There!”

Tommy pulled himself together forthwith. He had
never before submitted to being bullied by Ralston;
but he submitted then, for speech was beyond him.
They lowered the big frame between them, and at Ralston’s
command he supported it while the doctor made a swift
examination of the injury.

Then, while this was in progress, the wounded man
recovered his senses and forced a few husky words.
“Hullo,—­Ralston! Have they done
me in?”

Page 210

Ralston’s eyes went to his face for the first
time, shot a momentary glance at Tommy, and returned
to the matter in hand.

“Don’t talk!” he said.

A few seconds later he got to his feet. “Keep
him just as he is! I must go and fetch something.
Don’t let him speak!”

He was gone with the words, and Tommy, still feeling
bewildered and rather sick, knelt in silence and waited
for his return.

But almost immediately the husky voice spoke again.
“Tommy—­that you?”

Tommy felt himself begin to tremble again and put
forth all his strength to keep himself in hand.
“Don’t talk!” he said gruffly.

“I’ve—­got to talk.”
The words came, forced by angry obstinacy. “It’s
no—­damnation—­good. I’m
done for—­beaten on the straight. And
that hell hound Monck—­”

“Damn you! Be quiet!” said Tommy
in a furious undertone.

“I won’t be quiet. I’ll have—­my
turn—­such as it is. Where’s Stella?
Fetch Stella! I’ve a right to that anyway.
She is—­my lawful wife!”

“I can’t fetch her,” said Tommy.

“All right then. You can tell her—­from
me—­that she’s been duped—­as
I was. She’s mine—­not his.
He came—­with that cock-and-bull story about—­the
other woman. But she was dead—­I’ve
found out since. She was dead—­and
he knew it. He faked up the tale—­to
suit himself. He wanted her—­the damn
skunk—­wanted her—­and cheated—­cheated—­to
get her.”

He stopped, checked by a terrible gurgle in the throat.
Tommy, white with passion, broke fiercely into his
gasping silence.

“It’s a damned lie! Monck is a white
man! He never did—­a thing like that!”

And then he too stopped in sheer horror at the devilish
hatred that gleamed in the rolling, bloodshot eyes.

A few dreadful seconds passed. Then Ralph Dacre
gathered his ebbing life in one last great effort
of speech. “She is my wife. I hold
the proof. If it hadn’t been for this—­I’d
have taken her from him—­to-night. He
ruined me—­and he robbed me. But I—­I’ll
ruin him now. It’s my turn. He is
not—­her husband, and she—­she’ll
scorn him after this—­if I know her.
Consoled herself precious soon. Yes, women are
like that. But they don’t forgive so easily.
And she—­is not—­the forgiving
sort—­anyway. She’ll never forgive
him for tricking her—­the hound! She’ll
never forget that the child—­her child—­is
a bastard. And—­the Regiment—­won’t
forget either. He’s down—­and
out.”

He ceased to speak. Tommy’s hands were
clenched. If the man had been on his feet, he
would have struck him on the mouth. As it was,
he could only kneel in impotence and listen to the
amazing utterance that fell from the gasping lips.

He felt stunned into passivity. His anger had
strangely sunk away, though he regarded the man he
supported with such an intensity of loathing that
he marvelled at himself for continuing to endure the
contact. The astounding revelation had struck
him like a blow between the eyes. He felt numb,
almost incapable of thought.

Page 211

He heard Ralston returning and wondered what he could
have been doing in that interminable interval.
Then, reluctant but horribly fascinated, his look
went back to the upturned, dreadful face. The
malignancy had gone out of it. The eyes rolled
no longer, but gazed with a great fixity at something
that seemed to be infinitely far away. As Tommy
looked, a terrible rattling breath went through the
heavy, inert form. It seemed to rend body and
soul asunder. There followed a brief palpitating
shudder, and the head on his arm sank sideways.
A great stillness fell....

Ralston knelt and freed him from his burden.
“Get up!” he said.

Tommy obeyed though he felt more like collapsing.
He leaned upon the table and stared while Ralston
laid the big frame flat and straight upon the floor.

“He’d have died anyhow,” said Ralston.
“It’s a wonder he ever got here if he
was shot in the jungle as he must have been. That
means—­probably—­that the brutes
have started their games to-night. Odd if he
should be the first victim!”

Tommy shuddered uncontrollably.

Ralston gripped his arm. “Don’t be
a fool now! Death is nothing extraordinary, after
all. It’s an experience we’ve all
got to go through some time or other. It doesn’t
scare me. It won’t you when you’re
a bit older. As for this fellow, it’s about
the best thing that could happen for everyone concerned.
Just rememer that! Providence works pretty near
the surface at times, and this is one of ’em.
You won’t believe me, I daresay, but I never
really felt that Ralph Dacre was dead—­until
this moment.”

He led Tommy from the room with the words. It
was not his custom to express himself so freely, but
he wanted to get that horror-stricken look out of
the boy’s eyes. He talked to give him time.

“And now look here!” he said. “You’ve
got to keep your head—­for you’ll
want it. I’ll give you something to steady
you, and after that you’ll be on your own.
You must cut back to The Green Bungalow and find Bernard
Monck and tell him just what has happened—­no
one else mind, until you’ve seen him. He’s
discreet enough. I’m going round to the
Colonel. For if what I think has happened, those
devils are ahead of us by twenty-four hours, and we’re
not ready for ’em. They’ve probably
cut the wires too. When you’ve done that,
you report down at the barracks! Your sister
will probably have to be taken there for safety.
And there may be some tough work before morning.”

These last words of his had a magical effect upon
Tommy. His eyes suddenly shone. Ralston
had accomplished his purpose. Nevertheless, he
took him back to the surgery and made him swallow some
sal volatile in spite of protest.

“And now you won’t be a fool, will you?”
he said at parting. “I should be sorry
if you got shot to no purpose. Monck would be
sorry too.”

Page 212

“Do you know where he is?” questioned
Tommy point-blank.

“Yes.” Blunt and uncompromising came
Ralston’s reply. “But I’m not
going to tell you, so don’t you worry yourself!
You stick to business, Tommy, and for heaven’s
sake don’t go round and make a mush of it!”

“Stick to business yourself!” said Tommy
rudely, suddenly awaking to the fact that he was being
dictated to; then pulled up, faintly grinning.
“Sorry: I didn’t mean that. You’re
a brick. Consider it unsaid! Good-bye!”

He held out his hand to Ralston who took it and thumped
him on the back by way of acknowledgment.

“You’re growing up,” he remarked
with approval, as Tommy went his way.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIERY VORTEX

“There is nothing more to be done,” said
Peter with mournful eyes upon the baby in the ayah’s
arms. “Will not my mem-sahib take
her rest?”

Stella’s eyes also rested upon the tiny wizen
face. She knew that Peter spoke truly. There
was nothing more to be done. She might send yet
again for Major Ralston. But of what avail?
He had told her that he could do no more. The
little life was slipping swiftly, swiftly, out of her
reach. Very soon only the desert emptiness would
be left.

“The mem-sahib may trust her baba
to Hanani,” murmured the ayah behind
the enveloping veil. “Hanani loves the baba
too.”

“Oh, I know,” Stella said.

Yet she hung over the ayah’s shoulder,
for to-night of all nights she somehow felt that she
could not tear herself away.

There had been a change during the day—­a
change so gradual as to be almost imperceptible save
to her yearning eyes. She was certain that the
baby was weaker. He had cried less, had, she believed,
suffered less; and now he lay quite passive in the
ayah’s arms. Only by the feeble,
fluttering breath that came and went so fitfully could
she have told that the tiny spark yet lingered in
the poor little wasted frame.

Major Ralston had told her earlier in the evening
that he might go on in this state for days, but she
did not think it probable. She was sure that
every hour now brought an infinitesimal difference.
She felt that the end was drawing near.

And so a great reluctance to go possessed her, even
though she would be within call all night. She
had a hungry longing to stay and watch the little
unconscious face which would soon be gone from her
sight. She wanted to hold each minute of the
few hours left.

Very softly Peter came to her side. “My
mem-sahib will rest?” he said wistfully.

She looked at him. His faithful eyes besought
her like the eyes of a dog. Their dumb adoration
somehow made her want to cry.

“If I could only stay to-night, Peter!”
she said.

“Mem-sahib,” he urged very pleadingly,
“the baba sleeps now. It may be
he will want you to-morrow. And if my mem-sahib
has not slept she will be too weary then.”

Page 213

Again she knew that he spoke the truth. There
had been times of late when she had been made aware
of the fact that her strength was nearing its limit.
She knew it would be sheer madness to neglect the warning
lest, as Peter suggested, her baby’s need of
her outlasted her endurance. She must husband
all the strength she had.

With a sigh she bent and touched the tiny forehead
with her lips. Hanani’s hand, long and
bony, gently stroked her arm as she did so.

“Old Hanani knows, mem-sahib,”
she whispered under her breath.

The tears she had barely checked a moment before sprang
to Stella’s eyes. She held the dark hand
in silence and was subtly comforted thereby.

Passing through the door that Peter held open for
her, she gave him her hand also. He bent very
low over it, just as he had bent on that first wedding-day
of hers so long—­so long—­ago,
and touched it with his forehead. The memory
flashed back upon her oddly. She heard again Ralph
Dacre’s voice speaking in her ear. “You,
Stella,—­you are as ageless as the stars!”
The pride and the passion of his tones stabbed through
her with a curious poignancy. Strange that the
thought of him should come to her with such vividness
to-night! She passed on to her room, as one moving
in a painful trance.

For a space she lingered there, hardly knowing what
she did; then she remembered that she had not bidden
Bernard good-night, and mechanically her steps turned
in his direction.

He was generally smoking and working on the verandah
at that hour. She made her way to the dining-room
as being the nearest approach.

But half-way across the room the sound of Tommy’s
voice, sharp and agitated, came to her: Involuntarily
she paused. He was with Bernard on the verandah.

“The devils shot him in the jungle, but he came
on, got as far as Ralston’s bungalow, and collapsed
there. He was dead in a few minutes—­before
anything could be done.”

The words pierced through her trance, like a naked
sword flashing with incredible swiftness, cutting
asunder every bond, every fibre, that held her soul
confined. She sprang for the open window with
a great and terrible cry.

“Who is dead? Who? Who?”

The red glare of the lamp met her, dazzled her, seemed
to enter her brain and cruelly to burn her; but she
did not heed it. She stood with arms flung wide
in frantic supplication.

“Everard!” she cried. “Oh God!
My God! Not—­Everard!”

Her wild words pierced the night, and all the voices
of India seemed to answer her in a mad discordant
jangle of unintelligible sound. An owl hooted,
a jackal yelped, and a chorus of savage, yelling laughter
broke hideously across the clamour, swallowing it
as a greater wave swallows a lesser, overwhelming
all that has gone before.

The red glare of the lamp vanished from Stella’s
brain, leaving an awful blankness, a sense as of something
burnt out, a taste of ashes in the mouth. But
yet the darkness was full of horrors; unseen monsters
leaped past her as in a surging torrent, devils’
hands clawed at her, devils’ mouths cried unspeakable
things.

Page 214

She stood as it were on the edge of the vortex, untouched,
unafraid, beyond it all since that awful devouring
flame had flared and gone out. She even wondered
if it had killed her, so terribly aloof was she, so
totally distinct from the pandemonium that raged around
her. It had the vividness and the curious lack
of all physical feeling of a nightmare. And yet
through all her numbness she knew that she was waiting
for someone—­someone who was dead like herself.

She had not seen either Bernard or Tommy in that blinding
moment on the verandah. Doubtless they were fighting
in that raging blackness in front of her. She
fancied once that she heard her brother’s voice
laughing as she had sometimes heard him laugh on the
polo-ground when he had executed a difficult stroke.
Immediately before her, a Titanic struggle was going
on. She could not see it, for the light in the
room behind had been extinguished also, but the dreadful
sound of it made her think for a fleeting second of
a great bull-stag being pulled down by a score of
leaping, wide-jawed hounds.

And then very suddenly she herself was caught—­caught
from behind, dragged backwards off her feet.
She cried out in a wild horror, but in a second she
was silenced. Some thick material that had a heavy
native scent about it—­such a scent as she
remembered vaguely to hang about Hanani the ayah—­was
thrust over her face and head muffling all outcry.
Muscular arms gripped her with a fierce and ruthless
mastery, and as they lifted and bore her away the
nightmare was blotted from her brain as if it had
never been. She sank into oblivion....

CHAPTER IX

THE DESERT OF ASHES

Was it night? Was it morning? She could
not tell. She opened her eyes to a weird and
incomprehensible twilight, to the gurgling sound of
water, the booming croak of a frog.

At first she thought that she was dreaming, that presently
these vague impressions would fade from her consciousness,
and she would awake to normal things, to the sunlight
beating across the verandah, to the cheery call of
Everard’s saice in the compound, and the
tramp of impatient hoofs. And Everard himself
would rise up from her side, and stoop and kiss her
before he went.

She began to wait for his kiss, first in genuine expectation,
later with a semi-conscious tricking of the imagination.
Never once had he left her without that kiss.

But she waited in vain, and as she waited the current
of her thoughts grew gradually clearer. She began
to remember the happenings of the night. It dawned
upon her slowly and terribly that Everard was dead.

When that memory came to her, her brain seemed to
stand still. There was no passing on from that.
Everard had been shot in the jungle—­just
as she had always known he would be. He had ridden
on in spite of it. She pictured his grim endurance
with shrinking vividness. He had ridden on to
Major Ralston’s bungalow and had collapsed there,—­collapsed
and died before they could help him. Clearly
before her inner vision rose the scene,—­Everard
sinking down, broken and inert, all the indomitable
strength of him shattered at last, the steady courage
quenched.

Page 215

Yet what was it he had once said to her? It rushed
across her now—­words he had uttered long
ago on the night he had taken her to the ruined temple
at Khanmulla. “My love is not the kind that
burns and goes out.” She remembered the
exact words, the quiver in the voice that had uttered
them. Then, that being so, he was loving her still.
Across the desert—­her bitter desert of
ashes—­the lamp was shining even now.
Love like his was immortal. Love such as that
could never die.

That comforted her for a space, but soon the sense
of desolation returned. She remembered their
cruel estrangement. She remembered their child.
And that last thought, entering like an electric force,
gave her strength. Surely it was morning, and
he would be needing her! Had not Peter said he
would want her in the morning?

With a sharp effort she raised herself; she must go
to him.

The next moment a sharp breath of amazement escaped
her. Where was she? The strange twilight
stretched up above her into infinite shadow. Before
her was a broken archway through which vaguely she
saw the heavy foliage of trees. Behind her she
yet heard the splash and gurgle of water, the croaking
of frogs. And near at hand some tiny creature
scratched and scuffled among loose stones.

She sat staring about her, doubting the evidence of
her senses, marvelling if it could all be a dream.
For she recognized the place. It was the ruined
temple of Khanmulla in which she sat. There were
the crumbling steps on which she had stood with Everard
on the night that he had mercilessly claimed her love,
had taken her in his arms and said that it was Kismet.

It was then that like a dagger-thrust the realization
of his loss went through her. It was then that
she first tasted the hopeless anguish of loneliness
that awaited her, saw the long, long desert track stretching
out before her, leading she knew not whither.
She bowed her head upon her arms and sat crushed,
unconscious of all beside....

It must have been some time later that there fell
a soft step beside her; a veiled figure, bent and
slow of movement, stooped over her.

“Mem-sahib!” a low voice said.

She looked up, startled and wondering. “Hanani!”
she said.

“Yes, it is Hanani.” The woman’s
husky whisper came reassuringly in answer. “Have
no fear, mem-sahib! You are safe here.”

“What—­happened?” questioned
Stella, still half-doubting the evidence of her senses.
“Where—­where is my baby?”

Hanani knelt down by her side. “Mem-sahib,”
she said very gently, “the baba sleeps—­in
the keeping of God.”

It was tenderly spoken, so tenderly that—­it
came to her afterwards—­she received the
news with no sense of shock. She even felt as
if she must have somehow known it before. In
the utter greyness of her desert—­she had
walked alone.

“He is dead?” she said.

Page 216

“Not dead, mem-sahib,” corrected
the ayah gently. She paused a moment,
then in the same hushed voice that was scarcely more
than a whisper: “He—­passed,
mem-sahib, in these arms, so easily, so gently,
I knew not when the last breath came. You had
been gone but a little space. I sent Peter to
call you, but your room was empty. He returned,
and I went to seek you myself. I reached you only
as the storm broke.”

“It was but a band of budmashes, mem-sahib.”
A note of contempt sounded in the quiet rejoinder.
“I think they were looking for Monck sahib—­for
the captain sahib. But they found him not.”

“No,” Stella said. “No.
They had killed him already—­in the jungle.
At least, they had shot him. He died—­afterwards.”
She spoke dully; she felt as if her heart had grown
old within her, too old to feel poignantly any more.
“Go on!” she said, after a moment.
“What happened then? Did they kill Bernard
sahib and Denvers sahib, too?”

“Neither, my mem-sahib.” Hanani’s
reply was prompt and confident. “Bernard
sahib was struck on the head and senseless when
we dragged him in. Denvers sahib was not
touched. It was he who put out the lamp and saved
their lives. Afterwards, I know not how, he raised
a great outcry so that they thought they were surrounded
and fled. Truly, Denvers sahib is great.
After that, he went for help. And I, mem-sahib,
fearing they might return to visit their vengeance
upon you—­being the wife of the captain
sahib whom they could not find—­I
wrapped a saree about your head and carried
you away.” Humble pride in the achievement
sounded in Hanani’s voice. “I knew
that here you would be safe,” she ended.
“All evil-doers fear this place. It is said
to be the abode of unquiet spirits.”

Again Stella gazed around the place. Her eyes
had become accustomed to the green-hued twilight.
The crumbling, damp-stained walls stretched away into
darkness behind her, but the place held no terrors
for her. She was too tired to be afraid.
She only wondered, though without much interest, how
Hanani had managed to accomplish the journey.

“Where is Peter?” she asked at last.

“Peter remained with Bernard sahib,”
Hanani answered. “He will tell them where
to seek for you.”

Again Stella gazed about the place. It struck
her as strange that Peter should have relinquished
his guardianship of her, even in favour of Hanani.
But the thought did not hold her for long. Evidently
he had known that he could trust the woman as he trusted
himself and her strength must be almost superhuman.
She was glad that he had stayed behind with Bernard.

She leaned her chin upon her hands and sat silent
for a space. But gradually, as she reviewed the
situation, curiosity began to struggle through her
lethargy. She looked at Hanani crouched humbly
beside her, looked at her again and again, and at
last her wonder found vent in speech.

Page 217

“Hanani,” she said, “I don’t
quite understand everything. How did you get
me here?”

Hanani’s veiled head was bent. She turned
it towards her slowly, almost reluctantly it seemed
to Stella.

“I carried you, mem-sahib,” she
said.

“You—­carried—­me!”
Stella repeated the word incredulously. “But
it is a long way—­a very long way—­from
Kurrumpore.”

Hanani was silent for a moment or two, as though irresolute.
Then: “I brought you by a way unknown to
you, mem-sahib,” she said. “Hafiz—­you
know Hafiz?—­he helped me.”

“Hafiz!” Stella frowned a little.
Yes, by sight she knew him well. Hafiz the crafty,
was her private name for him.

“How did he help you?” she asked.

Again Hanani seemed to hesitate as one reluctant to
give away a secret. “From the shop of Hafiz—­that
is the shop of Rustam Karin in the bazaar,”
she said at length, and Stella quivered at the name,
“there is a passage that leads under the ground
into the jungle. To those who know, the way is
easy. It was thus, mem-sahib, that I brought
you hither.”

“But how did you get me to the bazaar?”
questioned Stella, still hardly believing.

“It was very dark, mem-sahib; and the
budmashes were scattered. They would not
touch an old woman such as Hanani. And you, my
mem-sahib, were wrapped in a saree.
With old Hanani you were safe.”

“Ah, why should you take all that trouble to
save my life?” Stella said, a little quiver
of passion in her voice. “Do you think life
is so precious to me—­now?”

Hanani made a protesting gesture with one arm.
“Lo, it is yet night, mem-sahib,”
she said. “But is it not written in the
sacred Book that with the dawn comes joy?”

“There can never be any joy for me again,”
Stella said.

Hanani leaned slowly forward. “Then will
my mem-sahib have missed the meaning of life,”
she said. “Listen then—­listen
to old Hanani—­who knows! It is true
that the baba cannot return to the mem-sahib,
but would she call him back to pain? Have I not
read in her eyes night after night the silent prayer
that he might go in peace? Now that the God of
gods has answered that prayer—­now that the
baba is in peace—­would my mem-sahib
have it otherwise? Would she call that loved one
back? Would she not rather thank the God of spirits
for His great mercy—­and so go her way rejoicing?”

Again the utterance was too full of tenderness to
give her pain. It sank deep into Stella’s
heart, stilling for a space the anguish. She looked
at the strange, draped figure beside her that spoke
those husky words of comfort with a dawning sense
of reverence. She had a curious feeling as of
one being guided through a holy place.

Page 218

“You—­comfort me, Hanani,” she
said after a moment. “I don’t think
I am really grieving for the baba yet.
That will come after. I know that—­as
you say—­he is at peace, and I would not
call him back. But—­Hanani—­that
is not all. It is not even the half or the beginning
of my trouble. The loss of my baba I can
bear—­I could bear—­bravely.
But the loss of—­of—­” Words
failed her unexpectedly. She bowed her head again
upon her arms and wept the bitter tears of despair.

Hanani the ayah sat very still by her side,
her brown, bony hands tightly gripped about her knees,
her veiled head bent slightly forward as though she
watched for someone in the dimness of the broken archway.

At last very, very slowly she spoke.

“Mem-sahib, even in the desert the sun
rises. There is always comfort for those who
go forward—­even though they mourn.”

“Never, mem-sahib?” Hanani yet
gazed straight before her. Suddenly she made
a movement as if to rise, but checked herself as one
reminded by exertion of physical infirmity. “The
mem-sahib weeps for her lord,” she said.
“How shall Hanani comfort her? Yet never
is a cruel word. May it not be that he will—­even
now—­return?”

“He—­lives?” Stella started
upright with the words. In the gloom her eyes
shone with a sudden feverish light; but it very swiftly
died. “Ah, don’t torture me, Hanani!”
she said. “You mean well, but—­it
doesn’t help.”

“Hanani speaks the truth,” protested the
old ayah, and behind the enveloping veil came
an answering gleam as if she smiled. “My
lord the captain sahib spoke with Hafiz this
very night. Hafiz will tell the mem-sahib.”

But Stella shook her head in hopeless unbelief.
“I don’t trust Hafiz,” she said
wearily.

“Yet Hafiz would not lie to old Hanani,”
insisted the ayah in that soft, insinuating
whisper of hers.

Stella reached out a trembling hand and laid it upon
her shoulder. “Listen, Hanani!” she
said. “I have never seen your face, yet
I know you for a friend.”

“Ask not to see it, mem-sahib,”
swiftly interposed the ayah, “lest you
turn with loathing from one who loves you!”

Stella smiled, a quivering, piteous smile. “I
should never do that, Hanani,” she said.
“But I do not need to see it. I know you
love me. But do not—­out of your love
for me—­tell me a lie! It is false comfort.
It cannot help me.”

“But I have not lied, mem-sahib.”
There was earnest assurance in Hanani’s voice—­such
assurance as could not be disregarded. “I
have told you the truth. The captain sahib
is not dead. It was a false report.”

Page 219

“Hanani! Are you—­sure?”
Stella’s hand gripped the ayah’s
shoulder with convulsive, strength. “Then
who—­who—­was the sahib
they shot in the jungle—­the sahib
who died at the bungalow of Ralston sahib?
Did—­Hafiz—­tell you that?”

“That—­” said Hanani, and paused
as if considering how best to present the information,—­“that
was another sahib.”

“Another sahib?” Stella was trembling
violently. Her hold upon Hanani was the clutch
of desperation, “Who—­what was his
name?”

She felt in the momentary pause that followed that
the eyes behind the veil were looking at her strangely,
speculatively. Then very softly Hanani answered
her.

“His name, mem-sahib, was Dacre.”

“Dacre!” Stella repeated the name blankly.
It seemed to hold too great a meaning for her to grasp.

“So Hafiz told Hanani,” said the ayah.

“But—­Dacre!” Stella hung upon
the name as if it held her by a fascination from which
she could not shake free. “Is that—­all
you know?” she said at last.

“Not all, my mem-sahib,” answered
Hanani, in the soothing tone of one who instructs
a child. “Hafiz knew the sahib in
the days before Hanani came to Kurrumpore. Hafiz
told a strange story of the sahib. He had
married and had taken his wife to the mountains beyond
Srinagar. And there an evil fate had overtaken
him, and she—­the mem-sahib—­had
returned alone.”

Hanani paused dramatically.

“Go on!” gasped Stella almost inarticulately.

Hanani took up her tale again in a mysterious whisper
that crept in eerie echoes about the ruined place
in which they sat. “Mem-sahib, Hafiz
said that there was doubtless a reason for which he
feigned death. He said that Dacre sahib
was a bad man, and my lord the captain sahib
knew it. Wherefore he followed him to the mountains
and commanded him to be gone, and thus—­he
went.”

“How should Hanani know?” murmured the
ayah deprecatingly “Hafiz lives in the
bazaar. He hears many things—­some true—­some
false. But that Dacre sahib returned last
night and that he now is dead is true, mem-sahib.
And that my lord the captain sahib lives is
also true. Hanani swears it by her grey hairs.”

“Then where—­where is the captain
sahib?” whispered Stella.

The ayah shook her head. “It is
not given to Hanani to know all things,” she
protested. “But—­she can find
out. Does the mem-sahib desire her to
find out?”

“Yes,” Stella breathed.

Page 220

The fantastic tale was running like a mad tarantella
through her brain. Her thoughts were in a whirl.
But she clung to the thought of Everard as a shipwrecked
mariner clings to a rock. He yet lived; he had
not passed out of her reach. It might be he was
even then at Khanmulla a few short miles away.
All her doubt of him, all evil suspicions, vanished
in a great and overwhelming longing for his presence.
It suddenly came to her that she had wronged him,
and before that unquestionable conviction the story
of Ralph Dacre’s return was dwarfed to utter
insignificance. What was Ralph Dacre to her?
She had travelled far—­oh, very far—­through
the desert since the days of that strange dream in
the Himalayas. Living or dead, surely he had
no claim upon her now!

Impulsively she stooped towards Hanani. “Take
me to him!” she said. “Take me to
him! I am sure you know where he is.”

Hanani drew back slightly. “Mem-sahib,
it will take time to find him,” she remonstrated.
“Hanani is not a young woman. Moreover—­”
she stopped suddenly, and turned her head.

“What is it?” said Stella.

“I heard a sound, mem-sahib.”
Hanani rose slowly to her feet. It seemed to
Stella that she was more bent, more deliberate of movement,
than usual. Doubtless the wild adventure of the
night had told upon her. She watched her with
a tinge of compunction as she made her somewhat difficult
way towards the archway at the top of the broken marble
steps. A flying-fox flapped eerily past her as
she went, dipping over the bent, veiled head with
as little fear as if she were a recognized inhabitant
of that wild place.

A sharp sense of unreality stabbed Stella. She
felt as one coming out of an all-absorbing dream.
Obeying an instinctive impulse, she rose up quickly
to follow. But even as she did so, two things
happened.

Hanani passed like a shadow from her sight, and a
voice she knew—­Tommy’s voice, somewhat
high-pitched and anxious—­called her name.

Swiftly she moved to meet him. “I am here,
Tommy! I am here!”

And then she tottered, feeling her strength begin
to fail.

“Oh, Tommy!” she gasped. “Help
me!”

He sprang up the steps and caught her in his arms.
“You hang on to me!” he said. “I’ve
got you.”

She leaned upon him quivering, with closed eyes.
“I am afraid I must,” she said weakly.
“Forgive me for being so stupid!”

“All right, darling. All right,”
he said. “You’re not hurt?”

“No, oh no! Only giddy—­stupid!”
She fought desperately for self-command. “I
shall be all right in a minute.”

She heard the voices of men below her, but she could
not open her eyes to look. Tommy supported her
strongly, and in a few seconds she was aware of someone
on her other side, of a steady capable hand grasping
her wrist.

“Drink this!” said Ralston’s voice.
“It’ll help you.”

He was holding something to her lips, and she drank
mechanically.

Page 221

“That’s better,” he said. “You’ve
had a rough time, I’m afraid, but it’s
over now. Think you can walk, or shall we carry
you?”

The matter-of-fact tones seemed to calm the chaos
of her brain. She looked up at him with a faint,
brave smile.

“I will walk,—­of course. There
is nothing the matter with me. What has happened
at Kurrumpore? Is all well?”

He met her eyes. “Yes,” he said quietly.

Her look flinched momentarily from his, but the next
instant she met it squarely. “I know about—­my
baby,” she said.

He bent his head. “You could not wish it
otherwise,” he said, gently.

She answered him with firmness, “No.”

The few words helped to restore her self-possession.
With her hand upon Tommy’s arm she descended
the steps into the green gloom of the jungle.
The morning sun was smiting through the leaves.
It gleamed in her eyes like the flashing of a sword.
But—­though the simile held her mind for
a space—­she felt no shrinking. She
had a curious conviction that the path lay open before
her at last. The Angel with the Flaming Sword
no longer barred the way.

A party of Indian soldiers awaited her. She did
not see how many. Perhaps she was too tired to
take any very vivid interest in her surroundings.
A native litter stood a few yards from the foot of
the steps. Tommy guided her to it, Major Ralston
walking on her other side.

She turned to the latter as they reached it.
“Where is Hanani?” she said.

He raised his brows for a moment. “She
has probably gone back to her people,” he answered.

“She was here with me, only a minute ago,”
Stella said.

He glanced round. “She knows her way no
doubt. We had better not wait now. If you
want her, I will find her for you later.”

“Thank you,” Stella said. But she
still paused, looking from Ralston to Tommy and back
again, as one uncertain.

“What is it, darling?” said Tommy gently.

She put her hand to her head with a weary gesture
of bewilderment. “I am very stupid,”
she said. “I can’t think properly.
You are sure everything is all right?”

“Quite sure, dear,” he said. “Don’t
try to think now. You are done up. You must
rest.”

Her face quivered suddenly like the face of a tired
child. “I want—­Everard,”
she said piteously. “Won’t you—­can’t
you—­bring him to me? There is something—­I
want—­to say to him.”

There was an instant’s pause. She felt
Tommy’s arm tighten protectingly around her,
but he did not speak.

It was Major Ralston who answered her. “Certainly
he shall come to you. I will see that he does.”

The confidence of his reply comforted her. She
trusted Major Ralston instinctively. She entered
the litter and sank down among the cushions with a
sigh.

As they bore her away along the narrow, winding path
which once she had trodden with Everard Monck so long,
long ago, on the night of her surrender to the mastery
of his love, utter exhaustion overcame her and the
sleep, which for so long she had denied herself, came
upon her like an overwhelming flood, sweeping her
once more into the deeps of oblivion. She went
without a backward thought.

Page 222

CHAPTER X

THE ANGEL

It was many hours before she awoke and in all those
hours she never dreamed. She only slept and slept
and slept in total unconsciousness, wrapt about in
the silence of her desert.

She awoke at length quite fully, quite suddenly, to
a sense of appalling loneliness, to a desolation unutterable.
She opened her eyes wide upon a darkness that could
be felt, and almost cried aloud with the terror of
it. For a few palpitating moments it seemed to
her that the most dreadful thing that could possibly
happen to her had come upon her unawares.

And then, even as she started up in a wild horror,
a voice spoke to her, a hand touched her, and her
fear was stayed.

“Stella!” the voice said, and steady fingers
came up out of the darkness and closed upon her arm.

Her heart gave one great leap within her, and was
still. She did not speak in answer, for she could
not. She could only sit in the darkness and wait.
If it were a dream, it would pass—­ah, so
swiftly! If it were reality, surely, surely he
would speak again!

He spoke—­softly through the silence.
“I don’t want to startle you. Are
you startled? I’ve put out the lamp.
You are not afraid?”

Her voice came back to her; her heart jerked on, beating
strangely, spasmodically, like a maimed thing.
“Am I awake?” she said. “Is
it—­really—­you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can you listen
to me a moment? You won’t be afraid?”

She quivered at the repeated question. “Everard—­no!”

He was silent then, as if he did not know how to continue.
And she, finding her strength, leaned to him in the
darkness, feeling for him, still hardly believing
that it was not a dream.

He took her wandering hand and held it imprisoned.
The firmness of his grasp reassured her, but it came
to her that his hands were cold; and she wondered.

“I have something to say to you,” he said.

She sat quite still in his hold, but it frightened
her. “Where are you?” she whispered.

“I am just—­kneeling by your side,”
he said. “Don’t tremble—­or
be afraid! There is nothing to frighten you.
Stella,” his voice came almost in a whisper.
“Hanani—­the ayah—­told
you something in the ruined temple at Khanmulla.
Can you remember what it was?”

“Ah!” she said. “Do you mean
about—­Ralph Dacre?”

“I do mean that,” he said. “I
don’t know if you actually believed it.
It may have sounded—­fantastic. But—­it
was true.”

“Ah!” she said again. And then she
knew why he had turned out the lamp. It was that
he might not see her face when he told her—­or
she his.

Page 223

He went on; his hold upon her had tightened, but she
knew that he was unconscious of it. It was as
if he clung to her in anguish—­though she
heard no sign of suffering in his low voice. “I
have done the utmost to keep the truth from you—­but
Fate has been against me all through. I sent
him away from you in the first place because I heard—­too
late—­that he had a wife in England.
I married you because—­” he paused
momentarily—­“ah well, that doesn’t
come into the story,” he said. “I
married you, believing you free. Then came Bernard,
and told me that the wife—­Dacre’s
wife—­had died just before his marriage to
you. That also came—­too late.”

He stopped again, and she knew that his head was bowed
upon his arms though she could not free her hand to
touch it.

“You know the rest,” he said, and his
voice came to her oddly broken and unfamiliar.
“I kept it from you. I couldn’t bear
the thought of your facing—­that,—­especially
after—­after the birth of—­the
child. Even when you found out I had tricked
you in that native rig-out, I couldn’t endure
the thought of your knowing. I nearly killed myself
that night. It seemed the only way. But
Bernard stopped me. I told him the truth.
He said I was wrong not to tell you. But—­somehow—­I
couldn’t.”

“Oh, I wish—­I wish you had,”
she breathed.

“Do you? Well,—­I couldn’t.
It’s hard enough to tell you now. You were
so wonderful, so beautiful, and they had flung mud
at you from the beginning. I thought I had made
you safe, dear, instead of—­dragging you
down.”

“Everard!” Her voice was quick and passionate.
She made a sudden effort and freed one hand; but he
caught it again sharply.

“No, you mustn’t, Stella! I haven’t
finished. Wait!”

His voice compelled her; she submitted hardly knowing
that she did so.

“It is over now,” he said. “The
fellow is dead. But, Stella,—­he had
found out—­what I had found out. And
he was on his way to you. He meant to—­claim
you.”

She shuddered—­a hard, convulsive shudder—­as
if some loathsome thing had touched her. “But—­I
would never have gone back,” she said.

“No,” he answered grimly, “you wouldn’t.
I was here, and I should have shot him. They
saved me that trouble.”

“You were—­here!” she said.

“Yes,—­much nearer to you than you
imagined.” Almost curtly he answered.
“Did you think I would leave you at the mercy
of those devils? You!” He stopped himself
sharply. “No I was here to protect you—­and
I would have done it—­though I should have
shot myself afterwards. Even Bernard would have
seen the force of that. But it didn’t come
to pass that way. It wasn’t intended that
it should. Well, it is over. There are not
many who know—­only Bernard, Tommy, and
Ralston. They are going—­if possible—­to
keep it dark, to suppress his name. I told them
they must.” His voice rang suddenly harsh,
but softened again immediately. “That’s
all, dear—­or nearly all. I hope it
hasn’t shocked you unutterably. I think
the secret is safe anyhow, so you won’t have—­that—­to
face. I’m going now. I’ll send—­Peter—­to
light the lamp and bring you something to eat.
And you’ll undress, won’t you, and go to
bed? It’s late.”

Page 224

He made as if he would rise, but her hands turned
swiftly in his, turned and held him fast.

“Everard—­Everard, why should you
go?” she whispered tensely into the darkness
that hid his face.

He yielded in a measure to her hold, but he would
not suffer himself to be drawn nearer.

“Why?” she said again insistently.

He hesitated. “I think,” he said
slowly “that you will find an answer to that
question—­possibly more than one—­when
you have had time to think it over.”

“What do you mean?” she breathed.

“Must I put it into words?” he said.

She heard the pain in his voice, but for the first
time she passed it by unheeded. “Yes, tell
me!” she said. “I must know.”

He was silent for a little, as if mustering his forces.
Then, his hands tight upon hers, he spoke. “In
the first place, you are Dacre’s widow, and
not—­my wife.”

She quivered in his hold. “And then?”
she whispered.

“And then,” he said, “our baby is
dead, so you are free from all—­obligations.”

Her hands clenched hard upon his. “Is that
all?”

“No.” With sudden passion he answered
her. “There are two more reasons why I
should go. One is—­that I have made
your life a hell on earth. You have said it,
and I know it to be true. Ah, you had better let
me go—­and go quickly. For your own
sake—­you had better!”

But she ignored the warning, holding him almost fiercely.
“And the last reason?” she said.

He was silent for a few seconds, and in his silence
there was something of an electric quality, something
that pierced and scorched yet strangely drew her.
“Someone else can tell you that,” he said
at length. “It isn’t that I am a
broken man. I know that wouldn’t affect
you one way or another. It is that I have done
a thing that you would hate—­yet that I
would do again to-morrow if the need arose. You
can ask Ralston what it is! Say I told you to!
He knows.”

“But I ask you,” she said, and still her
hands gripped his. “Everard, why don’t
you tell me? Are you—­afraid to tell
me?”

“No,” he said.

“Then answer me!” she said, her breathing
sharp and uneven. “Tell me the truth!
Make me understand you—­once and for all!”

“You have always understood me,” he said.

“No—­no!” she protested.

“Well, nearly always,” he amended.
“As long as you have known my love—­you
have known me. My love for you is myself—­the
immortal part. The rest—­doesn’t
count.”

“Ah!” she said, and suddenly the very
soul of her rose up and spoke. “Then you
needn’t tell me any more, dear love—­dear
love. I don’t need to hear it. It
doesn’t matter. It can’t make any
difference. Nothing ever can again, for, as you
say, nothing else counts. Go if you must,—­but
if you do—­I shall follow you—­I
shall follow you—­to the world’s end.”

“Stella!” he said.

Page 225

“I mean it,” she told him, and her voice
throbbed with a fiery force that was deeper than passion,
stronger than aught human. “You are mine
and I am yours. God knows, dear,—­God
knows that is all that matters now. I didn’t
understand before. I do now, I think—­suffering
has taught me—­many things. Perhaps
it is—­His Angel.”

“The Angel with the Flaming Sword,” he
said, under his breath.

“But the Sword is turned away,” she said.
“The way is open.”

He got to his feet abruptly. “Wait!”
he said. “Before you say that—­wait!”

He freed himself from her hold gently but very decidedly.
She knew that for a second he stood close above her
with arms outflung before he turned away. Then
there came the rasp of a match, a sudden flare in the
darkness. She looked to see his face—­and
uttered a cry.

It was Hanani, the veiled ayah, who stooped
to kindle the lamp....

CHAPTER XI

THE DAWN

“This country is like an infernal machine,”
said Bernard. “You never know when it’s
going to explode. There’s only one reliable
thing in it, and that’s Peter.”

He turned his bandaged head in the latter’s
direction, and received a tender, indulgent smile
in answer. Peter loved the big blue-eyed sahib
with the same love which he had for the children of
the sahib-log.

“Whatever happens,” Bernard continued,
“there’s always Peter. He keeps the
whole show going, and is never absent when wanted.
In fact, I begin to think that India wouldn’t
be India without him.”

“A very handsome compliment,” said Sir
Reginald.

“It is, isn’t it?” smiled Bernard.
“I have a vast respect for him—­a
quite unbounded respect. He is the greatest greaser
of wheels I have ever met. Help yourself, sir,
won’t you? I am sorry I can’t join
you, but Major Ralston insists that I must walk circumspectly,
being on his sick list. I really don’t
know why my skull was not cracked. He declares
it ought to have been and even seems inclined to be
rather disgusted with me because it wasn’t.”

“You had a very lucky escape,” said Sir
Reginald. “Allow me to congratulate you!”

“And a very enjoyable scrap,” said Bernard,
with kindling eyes. “Thanks! I wouldn’t
have missed it for the world,—­the damn’
dirty blackguards!”

“Was Mrs. Monck much upset?” asked Sir
Reginald. “I have never yet had the pleasure
of meeting her.”

“She was more upset on my brother’s account
than her own,” Bernard said, giving his visitor
a shrewd look. “She thought he had come
to harm.”

“Ah!” said Sir Reginald, and held his
glass up to the light. “And that was not
so?”

“No,” said Bernard, and closed his lips.

There was a distinct pause before Sir Reginald’s
eyes left his glass and came down to him. They
held a faint whimsical smile.

Page 226

“We owe your brother a good deal,” he
said.

“Do we?” said Bernard.

Sir Reginald’s smile became more pronounced.
“I have been told that it is entirely owing
to him—­his forethought, secrecy, and intimate
knowledge obtained at considerable personal risk—­that
this business was not of a far more serious nature.
I was of course in constant communication with Colonel
Mansfield. We knew exactly where the danger lay,
and we were prepared for all emergencies.”

“Except the one which actually rose,”
suggested Bernard.

“That?” said Sir Reginald. “That
was a mere flash in the pan. But we were prepared
even for that. My men were all in Markestan by
daybreak, thanks to the promptitude of young Denvers.”

“If all our throats had been slit the previous
night, that wouldn’t have helped us much,”
Bernard pointed out.

Sir Reginald broke into a laugh. “Well,
dash it, man! We did our best. And anyway
they weren’t, so you haven’t much cause
for complaint.”

“You see, I was one of the casualties,”
explained Bernard. “That accounts for my
being a bit critical. So you expected something
worse than this?”

“I did.” Sir Reginald spoke soberly
again. “If we hadn’t been prepared,
the whole of Markestan would have been ablaze by now
from end to end.”

“Instead of which, you have only permitted us
a fizz, a few bangs, and a splutter-out, as Tommy
describes it,” remarked Bernard. “And
you haven’t even caught the Rajah.”

“I wasn’t out to catch him,” said
Sir Reginald. “But I will tell you who
I am out to catch, though I am afraid I am applying
in the wrong quarter.”

Bernard’s eyes gleamed with a hint of malicious
amusement. “I thought my health was not
primarily responsible for the honour of your visit,
sir,” he said.

“No,” said Sir Reginald, with simplicity.
“I really came because I want to take you into
my confidence, and to ask for your confidence in return.”

He finished his drink with a speed that suggested
embarrassment, but the next moment he smiled.
“You had me there, padre. I withdraw the
suggestion. I should not have made it if I could
see the man himself. But he has disappeared,
and even Barnes, who knows everything, can’t
tell us where to look for him.”

“Neither can I,” said Bernard. “I
am not in his confidence to that extent.”

“Why don’t you ask his wife?” a
low voice said.

Both men started. Sir Reginald sprang to his
feet. “Mrs. Monck!”

“Yes,” Stella said. She stood a moment
framed in the French window, looking at him.
Then she stepped forward with outstretched hand.
The morning sunshine caught her as she moved.
She was very pale and her eyes were deeply shadowed,
but she was exceedingly beautiful.

Page 227

“I heard your voices,” she said, looking
at Sir Reginald, while her hand lay in his. “I
didn’t mean to listen at first. But I was
tempted, because you were talking of—­my
husband, and—­” she smiled at him
faintly, “I fell.”

“I think you were justified,” Sir Reginald
said.

“Thank you,” she answered gently.
She turned from him to Bernard, and bending kissed
him. “Are you better? Peter told me
it wasn’t serious. I would have come to
you sooner, but I was asleep for a very long time,
and afterwards—­Everard wanted me.”

“Everard!” he said sharply. “Is
he here?”

“Sit down!” murmured Sir Reginald, drawing
forward his chair.

But Stella remained standing, her hand upon Bernard’s
shoulder. “Thank you. But I haven’t
come to stay. Only to tell you—­just
to tell you—­all the things that Bernard
couldn’t, without betraying his trust.”

“My dear, dear child!” Bernard broke in
quickly, but Sir Reginald intervened in the same moment.

“No, no! Pardon me! Let her speak!
She wishes to do so, and I—­wish to listen.”

Stella’s hand pressed a little upon Bernard’s
shoulder, as though she supported herself thereby.

“It is right that you should know, Sir Reginald,”
she said. “It is only for my sake that
it has been kept from you. But I—­have
travelled the desert too long to mind an extra stone
or two by the way. First, with regard to the
suspicion which drove him out of the Army. You
thought—­everyone thought—­that
he had killed Ralph Dacre up in the mountains.
Even I thought so.” Her voice trembled a
little. “And I had less excuse than any
one else, for he swore to me that he was innocent—­though
he would not—­could not—­tell me
the truth of the matter. The truth was simply
this. Ralph Dacre was not dead.”

“Ah!” Sir Reginald said softly.

Bernard reached up and strongly grasped the hand that
rested upon him. But he spoke no word.

Stella went on with greater steadiness, her eyes resolutely
meeting the shrewd old eyes that watched her.
“He—­Everard—­came between
us because only a fortnight after our marriage he
received the news that Ralph had a wife living in
England. Perhaps I ought to tell you—­though
this in no way influenced him—­that my marriage
to Ralph was a mistake. I married him because
I was unhappy, not because I loved him. I sinned,
and I have been punished.”

“Poor girl!” said Sir Reginald very gently.

Her eyelids quivered, but she would not suffer them
to fall. “Everard sent him away from me,
made him vanish completely, and then came himself
to me—­he was in native disguise—­and
told me he was dead. I suppose it was wrong of
him. If so, he too has been punished. But
he wanted to save my pride. I had plenty of pride
in those days. It is all gone now. At least,
all I have left is for him—­that his honour
may be vindicated. I am afraid I am telling the
story very badly. Forgive me for taking so long!”

Page 228

“There is no hurry,” Sir Reginald answered
in the same gentle voice. “And you are
telling it very well.”

She smiled again—­her faint, sad smile.
“You are very kind. It makes it much easier.
You know how clever he is in native disguise.
I never recognized him. I came back, as I thought,
a widow. And then—­it was nearly a
year after—­I married Everard, because I
loved him. It was just before Captain Ermsted’s
murder. We had to come back here in a hurry because
of it. Then when the summer came we had to separate.
I went to Bhulwana for the birth of my baby.
And while I was there, he heard that Ralph Dacre’s
wife had died in England only a few days before his
marriage to me. That meant of course that I was
not Everard’s legal wife, that the baby was
illegitimate. But—­I was very ill at
the time—­he kept it from me.”

“Of course he did,” said Sir Reginald.

“Of course he did,” said Bernard.

“Yes,” she assented. “He couldn’t
help himself then. But he ought to have told
me afterwards—­when—­when I began
to have that horrible suspicion that everyone else
had, that he had murdered Ralph Dacre.”

“A difficult point,” said Sir Reginald.

“I told him he was making a mistake,”
said Bernard.

Stella glanced down at him. “It was a mistake,”
she said. “But he made it out of love for
me, because he thought—­he thought—­that
my pride was dearer to me than my love. I don’t
wonder he thought so. I gave him every reason.
For I wouldn’t listen to him, wouldn’t
believe him. I sent him away.” Her
breath caught suddenly, and she put a quick hand to
her throat. “That is what hurts me most,”
she said after a moment,—­“just to
remember that,—­to remember what I made him
suffer—­how I failed him—­when
Tommy, even Tommy, believed in him—­went
after him to tell him so.”

“But we all make mistakes,” said Sir Reginald
gently, “or we shouldn’t be human.”

She controlled herself with an effort. “Yes.
He said that, and told me to forget it. I don’t
know if I can, but I shall try. I shall try to
make up to him for it for as long as I live. And
I thank God—­for giving me the chance.”

Her deep voice quivered, and Bernard’s hand
tightened upon hers. “Yes,” he said,
looking at Sir Reginald. “Ralph Dacre is
dead. He was the unknown man who was shot in
the jungle two nights ago.”

“Indeed!” said Sir Reginald sharply.

“Yes,” Stella said. “He too
had found out—­about the death of his first
wife. And he was on his way to me. But—­”
she suddenly covered her eyes—­“I
couldn’t have borne it. I would have killed
myself first.”

Bernard reached up and thrust his arm about her, without
speaking.

She leaned against him for a few seconds as if the
story had taxed her strength too far. Then Sir
Reginald came to her and with a fatherly gesture drew
her hand away from her face.

“My dear,” he said very kindly, “thank
you a thousand times for telling me this. I know
it’s been infernally hard. I admire you
for it more than I can say. It hasn’t been
too much for you I hope?”

Page 229

She smiled at him through tears. “No—­no!
You are both—­so kind.”

He stooped with a very courtly gesture and carried
her hand to his lips. “Everard Monck is
a very lucky man,” he said, “but I think
he is almost worthy of his luck. And now—­I
want you to tell me one thing more. Where can
I find him?”

Her hand trembled a little in his. “I—­am
not sure he would wish me to tell you that.”

Sir Reginald’s grey moustache twitched whimsically.
“If his desire for privacy is so great, it shall
be respected. Will you take him a message from
me?”

“Of course,” she said.

Sir Reginald patted her hand and released it.
“Then please tell him,” he said, “that
the Indian Empire cannot afford to lose the services
of so valuable a servant as he has proved himself
to be, and if he will accept a secretaryship with
me I think there is small doubt that it will eventually
lead to much greater things.”

Stella gave a great start. “Oh, do you
mean that?” she said.

Sir Reginald smiled openly. “I really do,
Mrs. Monck, and I shall think myself very fortunate
to secure him. You will use your influence, I
hope, to induce him to accept?”

“But of course,” she said.

“Poor Stella!” said Bernard. “And
she hates India!”

She turned upon him almost in anger. “How
dare you pity me? I love anywhere that I can
be with him.”

“So like a woman!” commented Bernard.
“Or is it something in the air? I’ll
never bring Tessa out here when she’s grown up,
or she’ll marry and be stuck here for the rest
of her life.”

“You can do as you like with Tessa,” said
Stella, and turned again to Sir Reginald. “Is
that all you want of me now?”

“One thing more,” he answered gently.
“I hope I may say it without giving offence.”

With a gesture all-unconsciously regal she gave him
both her hands. “You may say—­anything,”
she said impulsively.

He bent again courteously. “Mrs. Monck,
will you invite me to witness the ratification of
the bond already existing between my friend Everard
Monck, and the lady who is honouring him by becoming
his lawful wife?”

She flushed deeply but not painfully. “I
will,” she said. “Bernard, you will
see to that, I know.”

“Yes; leave it to me, dear!” said Bernard.

“Thank you,” she said; and to Sir Reginald:
“Good-bye! I am going to my husband now.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Monck!” he said.
“And many thanks for your graciousness to a
stranger.”

“Oh no!” she answered quickly. “You
are a friend—­of us both.”

“I am proud to be called so,” he said.

As she passed back into the bungalow her heart fluttered
within her like the wings of a bird mounting upwards
in the dawning. The sun had risen upon the desert.

CHAPTER XII

THE BLUE JAY

Page 230

“Tommy says his name is Sprinter; but Uncle
St. Bernard calls him Whisky. I wonder which
is the prettiest,” said Tessa.

“I should call him Whisky out of compliment
to Uncle St. Bernard,” said Mrs. Ralston.

“He certainly does whisk,” said Tessa.
“But then—­Tommy gave him to me.”
She spoke with tender eyes upon a young mongoose that
gambolled at her feet. “Isn’t he
a love?” she said. “But he isn’t
nearly so pretty as darling Scooter,” she added
loyally. “Is he, Aunt Mary?”

“Not yet, dear,” said Mrs. Ralston with
a smile.

“I wish Uncle St. Bernard and Tommy would come,”
said Tessa restlessly.

“I hope you are going to be very good,”
said Mrs. Ralston.

“Oh yes,” said Tessa rather wearily.
“But I wish I hadn’t begun quite so soon.
Do you think Uncle St. Bernard will spoil me, Aunt
Mary?”

“I hope not, dear,” said Mrs. Ralston.

Tessa sighed a little. “I wonder if I shall
be sick on the voyage Home. I don’t want
to be sick, Aunt Mary.”

“I shouldn’t think about it if I were
you, dear,” said Mrs. Ralston sensibly.

“But I want to think about it,” said Tessa
earnestly. “I want to think about every
minute of it. I shall enjoy it so. Dear Uncle
St. Bernard said in his letter the other day that
we should be like the little pigs setting out to seek
their fortunes. He says he is going to send me
to school—­only a day school though.
Aunt Mary, shall I like going to school?”

“Of course you will, dear. What sensible
little girl doesn’t?”

“I’m sorry I’m going away from you,”
said Tessa suddenly. “But you’ll
have Uncle Jerry, won’t you? Just the same
as Aunt Stella will have darling Uncle Everard.
I think I’m sorriest of all for poor Tommy.”

“I daresay he will get over it,” said
Mrs. Ralston. “We will hope so anyway.”

“He has promised to write to me,” said
Tessa rather wistfully. “Do you think he
will forget to, Aunt Mary?”

“I’ll see he doesn’t,” said
Mrs. Ralston.

“Oh, thank you.” Tessa embraced her
tenderly. “And I’ll write to you
very, very often. P’raps I’ll write
in French some day. Would you like that?”

“Oh, very much,” said Mrs. Ralston.

“Then I will,” promised Tessa. “And
oh, here they are at last! Take care of Whisky
for me while I go and meet them!”

She was gone with the words—­a little, flying
figure with arms outspread, rushing to meet her friends.

“That child gets wilder and more harum-scarum
every day,” observed Lady Harriet, who was passing
The Grand Stand in her carriage at the moment.
“She will certainly go the same way as her mother
if that very easy-going parson has the managing of
her.”

The easy-going parson, however, had no such misgivings.
He caught the child up in his arms with a whoop of
welcome.

“Well run, my Princess Bluebell! Hullo,
Tommy! Who are you saluting so deferentially?”

Page 231

“Only that vicious old white cat, Lady Harriet,”
said Tommy. “Hullo, Tessa! Your legs
get six inches longer every time I look at ’em.
Put her down, St. Bernard! She’s going
to race me to The Grand Stand.”

“But I want to go and see Uncle Everard and
Aunt Stella at The Nest,” protested Tessa, hanging
back from the contest. “Besides Aunt Mary
says I’m not to get hot.”

“You can’t go there anyway,” said
Tommy inexorably. “The Nest is closed to
the public for to-night. They are going to have
a very sacred and particular evening all to themselves.
That’s why they wouldn’t come in here
with us.”

“Are they love-making?” asked Tessa, with
serious eyes. “Do you know, I heard a blue
jay laughing up there this morning. Was that what
he meant?”

“Something of that silly nature,” said
Tommy. “And he’s going to be a public
character is Uncle Everard, so he is wise to make the
most of his privacy now. Ah, Bhulwana,”
he stretched his arms to the pine-trees, “how
I have yearned for thee!”

“And me too,” said Tessa jealously.

He looked at her. “You, you scaramouch?
Of course not! Whoever yearned for a thing like
you? A long-legged, snub-nosed creature without
any front teeth worth mentioning!”

“I have! You’re horrid!” cried
Tessa, stamping an indignant foot. “Isn’t
he horrid, Uncle St. Bernard? If it weren’t
for that darling mongoose, I should hate him!”

“Oh, but it’s wrong to hate people, you
know.” Bernard passed a pacifying arm about
her quivering form. “You just treat him
to the contempt he deserves, and give all your attention
to your doting old uncle who has honestly been longing
for you from the moment you left him!”

“Oh, darling!” She turned to him swiftly.
“I’ll never go away from you again.
I can say that now, can’t I?”

Her red lips were lifted. He stooped and kissed
them. “It’s the one thing I love
to hear you say, my princess,” he said.

The sun set in a glory of red and purple that night,
spreading the royal colours far across the calm sky.

It faded very quickly. The night swooped down,
swift and soundless, and in the verandah of the bungalow
known as The Nest a red lamp glowed with a steady
beam across the darkness.

Two figures stood for a space under the acacia by
the gate, lingering in the evening quiet. Now
and then there was the flutter of wings above them,
and the white flowers fell and scattered like bridal
blossoms all around.

“We must go in,” said Stella. “Peter
will be disappointed if we keep the dinner waiting.”

“Ah! We mustn’t hurt his august feelings,”
conceded Everard. “We owe him a mighty
lot, my Stella. I wish we could make some return.”

“His greatest reward is to let him serve us,”
she answered. “His love is the kind that
needs to serve.”

“Which is the highest kind of love,” said
Everard holding her to him. “Do you know—­Hanani
discovered that for me.”

Page 232

She pressed close to his side. “Everard
darling, why did you keep that secret so long?”

“My dear!” he said, and was silent.

“Well, won’t you tell me?” she urged.
“I think you might.”

He hesitated a moment longer; then, “Don’t
let it hurt you, dear!” he said. “But—­actually—­I
wasn’t sure that you cared—­until I
was with you in the temple and saw you—­weeping
for me.”

“Oh, Everard!” she said.

He folded her in his arms. “My darling,
I thought I had killed your love; and even though
I found then that I was wrong, I wasn’t sure
that you would ever forgive me for playing that last
trick upon you.”

“Ah!” she whispered. “And if
I—­hadn’t—­forgiven—­you?”

“I should have gone away,” he said.

“You would have left me?” She pressed
closer.

“I should have come back to you sometimes, sweetheart,
in some other guise. I couldn’t have kept
away for ever. But I would never have intruded
upon you,” he said.

“Everard! Everard!” She hid her face
against him. “You make me feel so ashamed—­so
utterly—­unworthy.”

“Don’t darling! Don’t,”
he whispered. “Let us be happy—­to-night!”

“And I wanted you so! I missed you so!”
she said brokenly.

He turned her face up to his own. “I missed
myself a bit, too,” he said. “I couldn’t
have played the Hanani game if Peter hadn’t put
me up to it. Darling, are those actually tears?
Because I won’t have them. You are going
to look forward, not back.”

She clung to him closely, passionately. “Yes—­yes.
I will look forward. But, oh, Everard, promise
me—­promise me—­you will never
deceive me again!”

“I don’t believe I could, any more,”
he said.

“But promise!” she urged.

“Very well, my dear one. I promise.
There! Is that enough?” He kissed her quivering
face, holding her clasped to his heart. “I
will never trick you again as long as I live.
But I had to be near you, and it was the only way.
Now—­am I quite forgiven?”

“Of course you are,” she told him tremulously.
“It wasn’t a matter for forgiveness.
Besides—­anyhow—­you were justified.
And,—­Everard,—­” her breathing
quickened a little; she just caught back a sob—­“I
love to think—­now—­that your
arms held our baby—­when he died.”

“My darling! My own girl!” he said,
and stopped abruptly, for his voice was trembling
too.

The next moment very tenderly he kissed her again.

“Please God he won’t be the only one!”
he said softly.

“Amen!” she whispered back.

In the acacia boughs above them the blue jay suddenly
uttered a rippling laugh of sheer joy and flew away.

THE END

GREATHEART

By Ethel M. Dell

There were two of them—­as unlike as two
men could be. Sir Eustace, big, domineering,
haughty, used to sweeping all before him with the power
of his personality.

Page 233

The other was Stumpy, small, insignificant, quiet,
with a little limp.

They clashed over the greatest question that may come
to men—­the love of a girl.

She took Sir Eustace just because she could not help
herself—­and was swept ahead on the tide
of his passion.

And then, when she needed help most—­on
the day before the wedding—­Stumpy saved
her—­and the quiet flame of his eyes was
more than the brute power of his brother.

How did it all come out? Did she choose wisely?
Is Greatheart more to be desired than great riches?
The answer is the most vivid and charming story that
Ethel M. Dell has written in a long time.

* * * *
*

G. P. Putnam’s Sons

New York London

The Hundredth Chance

By

Ethel M. Dell

Author of “The Way of an Eagle,” “The
Knave of Diamonds,” “The Rocks of
Valpre,” “The Keeper of the Door,”
“Bars of Iron,” etc.

12 deg.. Color Frontispiece by Edna Crompton

The hero is a man of masterful force, of hard and
rough exterior, who can remake a human being with
the assurance of success with which he breaks a horse.
Toward the heroine he is all love, patience, solicitude,
but she sees in him only the brute and the master.
To break down her hostility, and defeat unscrupulous
craft which draws her relentlessly to the verge of
disaster, the hero can rely only on the weight of his
personality and innate tenderness. It is the Hundredth
Chance; on it he stakes all.

* * * *
*

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

New York London

Blue Aloes

By Cynthia Stockley

Author of “Poppy,” “The Claw,”
“Wild Honey,” etc.

No writer can so unfailingly summons and materialize
the spirit of the weird, mysterious South Africa as
can Cynthia Stockley. She is a favored medium
through whom the great Dark Continent its tales unfolds.

A strange story is this, of a Karoo farm,—­a
hedge of Blue Aloes, a cactus of fantastic beauty,
which shelters a myriad of creeping things,—­a
whisper and a summons in the dead of the night,—­an
odor of death and the old.

There are three other stories in the book, stories
throbbing with the sudden, intense passion and the
mystic atmosphere of the Veldt.

* * * *
*

G. P. Putnam’s Sons

New York London

The Beloved Sinner

By

Rachel Swete Macnamara

Author of the “Fringe of the Desert,”
“The Torch of Life,” and “Drifting
Waters”

One of the very prettiest of springtime romances—­a
tale of exuberant young spirits intoxicated with the
springtime of living, of love gone adventuring on
the rough road—­a story, humorous with the
gay impudences of a young Eve who is half-afraid and
altogether delighted with her fairy-prince.